Izere language

Izere
Afusare
Izarek
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Kaduna State, Bauchi State, Plateau
Native speakers	100,000 (1993–2007)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Plateau Central ? Izeric Izere
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: izr – NE & NW Izere cen – Cèn (Chen) gne – Ganàng (Gashish)
Glottolog	None izer1242  (Izeric, incl. Firan)[2]

Izere is a dialect continuum of Plateau languages in Nigeria. According to Blench (2008), it is four languages, though Ethnologue does not distinguish NW and NE Izere. The Cen and Ganang varieties are spoken by only a couple thousand each. Cen has added Berom noun-class prefixes and consonant alternation to an Izere base.

Phonology

The Izere phonetic inventory includes 29 consonants and seven vowels and distinguishes three tone levels; two additional contour tones appear only rarely, in loanwords and due to onomatopoeia.^[3]

Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Izere are shown in the following table.

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labial–velar	Glottal
Stop	p  b		t  d		c  j	k  ɡ	k͡p  ɡ͡b
Nasal		m	n		ɲ	ŋ	ŋ͡m
Trill			(ɲ)
Fricative		f  v	s  z	ʃ  ʒ				h
Affricate			ts
Approximant					y, ɥ		w
Lateral			l

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of Izere are shown in the following table.

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open	a

Tonemes

There are three level (L, M & H) and two contour tonemes (LM & HL) in Izere; the latter two are found only in loanwords and onomatopoeia.

References

1. NE & NW Izere at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Cèn (Chen) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Ganàng (Gashish) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Izeric". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Blench, Roger; Kaze, Bitrus. Dictionary of the Izere language.

• Blench (2008) Prospecting proto-Plateau. Manuscript.