Urhobo language

Urhobo
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Delta State
Ethnicity	Urhobo people
Native speakers	550,000 (1993)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Edoid Southwestern Urhobo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	urh
Glottolog	urho1239[2]

Urhobo is one of the Edoid languages and is spoken by the Urhobo people of southern Nigeria.

Phonology

Urhobo 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]

It has a conservative consonant inventory for an Edoid language. It maintains three nasals, and only five oral consonants, /ɺ, l, ʋ, j, w/, have nasal allophones before nasal vowels.

	Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n	ɲ
Plosive	p  b		t  d	c  ɟ	k  ɡ	k͡p  ɡ͡b
Fricative	ɸ	f  v	s  z	ɕ  ʑ	ɣ		h
Trill			r̝
Flap			ɺ [ɾ̃]
Approximant		ʋ [ʋ̃]	l [n]	j [ɲ]		w [ŋʷ]

Examples

Temu: A substance or person reaching a position or status respectively.

• It is likely to originate from Atamu/Atumu, meaning 'Sun'.

Dictionaries

Urhobo dictionaries have been compiled by Ukere, Osubele, Ebireri Okrokoto of Urhobo Language Institute,^[4] and Julius Arerierian. A multilingual dictionary of English, Okpe, Urhobo and Uvwie was compiled by Akpobọmẹ Diffrẹ-Odiete with funding from Foundation for Endangered Languages.

References

1. Urhobo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Urhobo". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff
4. http://www.urhobolanguageinstitute.com/imagenes_libros/U%20%20R%20%20H%20%20O%20%20B%20%20O%20%20(%20T%20%20O%20)%20%20E%20%20N%20%20G%20%20L%20%20I%20%20S%20%20H%20%20%20%20%208-2-12%20%20%20%20(%20RE-EDITED)%20%20for%20upload.pdf

• Frank Kügler, Caroline Féry, Ruben Van De Vijver (2009) Variation and Gradience in Phonetics and Phonology
• Okrokoto Ebireri. Ukoko re Ephere R'Urhobo^[1]

1. http://www.urhobolanguageinstitute.com/viendo_categoria.cfm?num_cat=46