Ukue language

Ukue
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Ondo State
Native speakers	14,000 (2000)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Edoid Northwestern Osse River Ukue
Language codes
ISO 639-3	uku
Glottolog	ukue1238[2]

Ukue (Epinmi) is an Edoid language of Ondo State, Nigeria. It is sometimes considered the same language as Ehuẹun.

Phonology

Ukue has a rather reduced system, compared to proto-Edoid, of seven vowels; these form two harmonic sets, /i e a o u/ and /i ɛ a ɔ u/.^[3]

The language arguably has no phonemic nasal stops; [m, n] alternate with [β, l], depending on whether the following vowel is oral or nasal. Unusually, it has fricatives but no sibilants. The inventory is:^[4]

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Plosive	b	t̪  d̪	t  d		k  ɡ	k͡p  ɡ͡b
Fricative	f  v						h
Rhotic*			r̝
			r
Approximant	β [m]		l [n]	j		w

(*See Edo for a likely interpretation of the two rhotics.)

References

1. Ukue at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Ukue". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff
4. Jeff Mielke, 2008. The emergence of distinctive features, p 136ff;
   also found in Variation and gradience in phonetics and phonology, p 26ff