Ikwere language

Encyclopedia : I : IK : IKW : Ikwere language

Ikwere (or Ikwerre, Ikwerri) is an Igboid language spoken by over 980,000 people (according to the 1991 census) in Nigeria.

Contents

1 Phonology

1.1 Vowels

1.1.1 Vowel harmony

1.2 Consonants
1.3 Tone

2 References
3 External links

Phonology

Vowels

Ikwere distinguishes vowels by quality (frontedness and height), the presence or absence of nasalization, and the presence or absence of advanced tongue root.

		Front
High	+ATR
High	−ATR
Mid	+ATR
Mid	−ATR
Low	−ATR	a ã

There is also a vowel /ə̃/, which may be realized as [ɨ̃] or a syllabic nasal whose articulation is determined by adjacent consonants.

Vowel harmony

Ikwere exhibits two kinds of vowel harmony:

Every vowel in an Ikwere word, with a few exceptions, agrees with the other vowels in the word as to the presence or absence of advanced tongue root.
Vowels of the same height in adjacent syllables must all be either front or back, i.e. the pairs /i/ & /u/, /ɪ/ & /ʊ/, /e/ & /o/, and /ɛ/ & /ɔ/ cannot occur in adjacent syllables. Vowels of different heights, however, need not match for frontness/backness either. This doesn't apply to the first vowel in nouns beginning with a vowel or with /ɾ/, and doesn't apply to onomatopoeic words.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Explosive stop	Voiceless
Explosive stop	Voiced
Affricate	Voiceless
Affricate	Voiced
Fricative	Voiceless
Fricative	Voiced
Nonexplosive stop	Voiced
Nonexplosive stop	Glottalized
Lateral
Tap				ɾ
Approximant				ɾ

The tap /ɾ/ may sometimes be realized as an approximant [ɹ].

/ḅ ʼḅ l ɾ j ɰ w h hʷ/ are realized as [m ʼm n ɾ̃ j̃ ɰ̃ w̃ h̃ h̃ʷ], respectively, preceding a nasal vowel.

Tone

Ikwere is a tonal language.

References

External links

[Ethnologue report for language code:ikw]

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