Urhobo language

Urhobo
Urhobo
Native to	Nigeria
Region
Ethnicity	Urhobo people
Native speakers	(2,000,000 cited 1993)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Edoid Southwestern Urhobo; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	urh
Glottolog	urho1239
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Urhobo is a South-Western Edoid language^[2] spoken by the Urhobo people of southern Nigeria.

From the region of Delta and Bayelsa State. They are also known as fishermen.^[3]Their neighbours are the Isoko to the South East, the Itsekiri to the West, Ijaw to the South and Ukwuani people to the North East.

Phonology[]

Urhobo has a rather reduced system of sound inventory compared to proto-Edoid. The inventory of Urhobo consists of seven vowels; which form two harmonic sets,^[4] /i e a o u/ and /i ɛ a ɔ u/.^[5]

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.^[6]

	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]

Dictionaries[]

Urhobo dictionaries have been compiled by Ukere, Osubele, Ebireri Okrokoto of Urhobo Language Institute,^[7] and Julius Arerierian.^[8]. A wordlist of Nouns and verbs of Okpe, Urhobo and Uvwie was compiled by Akpobọmẹ Diffrẹ-Odiete with funding from Foundation for Endangered Languages.

Syntax[]

Urhobo has the SVO constituent order type as illustrated with the example below:

Òtítí

Otiti

ò

3SG

chó

steal.PST

ọhọ

hen

ná

DET

‘Otiti stole the hen.’

References[]

^ Urhobo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
^ Elugbe, B. O. 1989. Edoid: Phonology and Lexicon. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press
^ van der Hoop, Julie (2017). Effects of added drag on cetaceans : fishing gear entanglement and external tag attachment. Woods Hole, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
^ Rolle, N. 2013. “Phonetics and phonology of Urhobo.”UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report, 2013: 281-326.
^ Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff
^ admin (2016-04-07). "Urhobo Alphabets". Urhobo.UK. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
^ "Urhobo to English Dictionary" (PDF). urhobolanguageinstitute.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
^ Okeke, Chizoro. "Urhobo Dictionary by Ebireri Okrokoto Urhobo Language Institute". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Sources[]

Ukere, Anthony Obakpọnọvwẹ. Urhobo-English dictionary.
Frank Kügler, Caroline Féry, Ruben Van De Vijver (2009) Variation and Gradience in Phonetics and Phonology
Okrokoto Ebireri. Ukoko re Ephere R'Urhobo

This Volta–Niger language-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

[e18-1] Urhobo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] Elugbe, B. O. 1989. Edoid: Phonology and Lexicon. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press

[3] van der Hoop, Julie (2017). Effects of added drag on cetaceans : fishing gear entanglement and external tag attachment. Woods Hole, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

[4] Rolle, N. 2013. “Phonetics and phonology of Urhobo.”UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report, 2013: 281-326.

[5] Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff

[6] (2016-04-07). "Urhobo Alphabets". Urhobo.UK. Retrieved 2021-09-16.

[7] "Urhobo to English Dictionary" (PDF). urhobolanguageinstitute.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 November 2016.

[8] Okeke, Chizoro. "Urhobo Dictionary by Ebireri Okrokoto Urhobo Language Institute". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]