Ibibio language


Ibibio is the native language of the Ibibio people of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, belonging to the Ibibio-Efik dialect cluster of the Cross River languages. The name Ibibio is sometimes used for the entire dialect cluster. In pre-colonial times, it was written with Nsibidi ideograms, similar to Igbo, Efik, Anaang, and Ejagham. Ibibio has also had influences on Afro-American diasporic languages such as AAVE words like buckra, and buckaroo, which come from the Ibibio word mbakara, and in the Afro-Cuban tradition of abakua.

Phonology

Consonants

Intervocalic plosives are lenited:
Between consonants, have allophones that are transcribed, respectively. At least in case of, the realization is probably somewhat different, because the default IPA values of the symbols are very similar to the normal realizations of the Ibibio vowels. Similarly, may actually be near-close, rather than close.
In some dialects, occur as phonemes distinct from.

Tones

Ibibio has two tones: high and low. A word can be used to mean two or more different things based on the tone ascribed to it.