| Ukue | |
| States: | Nigeria |
| Region: | Ondo State |
| Date: | 2000 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta–Niger |
| Fam5: | Edoid |
| Fam6: | Northwestern |
| Fam7: | Osse River |
| Iso3: | uku |
| Glotto: | ukue1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Ukue |
Ukue (Epinmi) is an Edoid language of Ondo State, Nigeria. It is sometimes considered the same language as Ehuẹun.
Ukue has a rather reduced system, compared to proto-Edoid, of seven vowels; these form two harmonic sets, pronounced as //i e a o u// and pronounced as //i ɛ a ɔ u//.[1]
The language arguably has no phonemic nasal stops; pronounced as /[m, n]/ alternate with pronounced as /[β, l]/, depending on whether the following vowel is oral or nasal. Unusually, it has fricatives but no sibilants. The inventory is:[2]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | align=center | pronounced as / b/ | align=center | pronounced as /t̪ d̪/ | align=center | pronounced as /t d/ | align=center | pronounced as /k ɡ/ | align=center | pronounced as /k͡p ɡ͡b/ | ||
| Fricative | align=center | pronounced as /f v/ | align=center | pronounced as /h/ | ||||||||
| Rhotic | align=center | pronounced as /r̝/ | ||||||||||
| align=center | pronounced as /r/ | |||||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /β [m]/ | pronounced as /l [n]/ | pronounced as /j/ | pronounced as /w/ |