| Ikwerre | |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /ìkʷéré/ |
| States: | Rivers state, Nigeria |
| Dialects: | Apara, Ndele, Ọgbakiri, Ọbịọ, Akpor Alụụ, Ịbaa, Elele[1] |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta–Niger |
| Fam5: | Igboid |
| Script: | Latin script |
| Iso3: | ikw |
| Glotto: | ikwe1242 |
| Glottorefname: | Ikwere |
| Notice: | IPA |
Ikwerre, sometimes spelled Ikwere, or ikwerri,[2] is an Igboid language spoken primarily by the Ikwerre people, who inhabit certain areas of Rivers State, Nigeria.
The Ikwerre language is classified as an Igboid language. Based on lexicostatistical analysis, Kay Williamson first asserted that the Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Ogba, Etche and other Igbo languages belonged to the same language cluster, and were not dialects.[3] After subsequent studies and more research by both Williamson and Roger Blench, it was concluded that Igboid languages like Ikwerre, Ogba and their sister languages apart from Ekpeye form a "language cluster" and that they are somewhat mutually intelligible.[4]
Ikwerre distinguishes vowels by quality (frontedness and height), the presence or absence of nasalization, and the presence or absence of advanced tongue root.
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | +ATR | pronounced as /i ĩ/ | pronounced as /u ũ/ | |
| −ATR | pronounced as /ɪ ɪ̃/ | pronounced as /ʊ ʊ̃/ | ||
| Mid | +ATR | pronounced as /e ẽ/ | pronounced as /o õ/ | |
| −ATR | pronounced as /ɛ ɛ̃/ | pronounced as /ɔ ɔ̃/ | ||
| Low | −ATR | pronounced as /a ã/ | ||
Ikwerre exhibits two kinds of vowel harmony:
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar or palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive or Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Non-plosive stop | pronounced as /ḅ~m/ | ||||||||
| pronounced as /ʼḅ~ʼm/ | |||||||||
| Tap | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | |||
The oral consonants pronounced as /[ḅ ʼḅ l ɾ j ɰ w h hʷ]/ occur before oral vowels, and their nasal allophones pronounced as /[m ʼm n ɾ̃ ȷ̃ ɰ̃ w̃ h̃ h̃ʷ]/ before nasal vowels. The "non-explosive stops" pronounced as /[ḅ ʼḅ]/ are not plosives (not pulmonic) and are equivalent to implosives in other varieties of Igbo.
The tap pronounced as //ɾ// may sometimes be realized as an approximant pronounced as /[ɹ]/.
Ikwerre is a tonal language with seven tones: high, mid, low, high-low falling, high-mid falling, mid-low falling and rising. Ikwerre also has a tonal downdrift. For example: rínya᷆ (high, mid-low falling) means "weight, heaviness",rìnyâ (low, high-low falling) means "female, wife",mụ̌ (rising) means "to learn",mụ̂ (high-low falling) means "to give birth", etc.