Akpes language

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Akpes (Àbèsàbèsì) is an endangered language of Nigeria. It is spoken by approximately 7,000 speakers[1] in the North of Ondo State. The language is surrounded by several other languages of the Akoko area, where Yoruba is the lingua franca. Yoruba replaces Akpes in more and more informal domains and thus forwards a gradual shift from Akpes towards Yoruba. Akpes is generally attributed to the Volta-Congo Branch of the Niger-Congo phylum.

Name

The language is commonly referred to as 'Akpes' in literature. As this term is in fact the name of one of the four dialects, it is not supported by the whole speaker community. A meeting of representatives of all nine settlements has coined the term 'Abesabesi' to denote the language. It is a reduplication of the word àbès meaning 'we'.[2]

Distribution and varieties

Abesabesi is spoken in nine different settlements in the Akoko North-East and Akoko North-West LGAs of Ondo State. While Àkùnnù, Àsẹ̀, Gèdègédé, Ìbáràmù, Ìkáràmù, and Ìyànì are independent towns, three settlements form a quarter of the multilingual town Àjọwá: Dája, Ẹ̀ṣùkù, Ìlúdọ̀tun (also: Ìlọ̀dùn or Àkùnnù Àjọwá).[3] The quarter Efifa of Ajowa used to speak Akpes in the past but switched to the local Yoruba variety Owe.[4] Agoyi (2009) classifies the varieties of these nine settlements into four dialects: Akpes, Èkiròmì, Èṣùkù, Ìluẹnì.[2] Her analysis is mostly based on differences in lexicon and phonemics (especially vowel harmony). All dialects are mutually intelligible. [5] Below is a table of all dialects, the settlements they are spoken in, and alternate names.

Dialect Settlement Location Coordinates Alternate names
Akpes Àkùnnù Akoko North-East LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates".
Ìlúdọ̀tun Quarter of Àjọwá, Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates". Ìlọ̀dùn, Àkùnnù Àjọwá
Èkiròmì Asẹ Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates".
Ìkáràmù Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates". Ikaram, Ikeram, Ikorom
Èṣùkù Dája Quarter of Àjọwá, Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates".
Ẹ̀ṣùkù Quarter of Àjọwá, Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates". Echuku
Ìluẹnì Gèdègédé Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates".
Ìbáràmù Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates". Ibaram
Ìyànì Akoko North-West LGA Script error: No such module "Coordinates".

Genetic affiliation

While most scholars attribute Abesabesi somewhere in the Volta–Niger branch of Niger–Congo, its exact position within this branch is disputed. Some claimed that it forms a separate sub-branch and others claimed a closer relationship to the Edoid languages or Ukaan.[6] [7]

The ASJP 4.0 classifies Abesabesi as most closely related to the Ukaan language.[8]

Phonology

Abesabesi has a rich phoneme inventory comprising labial-velar and labialized consonants and an advanced tongue root (ATR) distinction for the oral mid vowels. The orthography used here follows Lau (2020),[9] which is based on IPA. Abesabesi is a tonal language with a high, a mid, and a low tone. These tones are symbolized through an acute accent, no accent, or grave accent on the tone-bearing unit. All three tones are lexical tones. However, the high tone only rarely appears on base lexemes but is often used as grammatical tone marking the mood of a clause, possession, location, or relativization. Frequent phonological processes in Abesabesi include vowel deletion, assimilation, and vowel harmony. A syllable can have the structure N (syllabic nasal) or (C)V(V)(C). Closed syllables only appear at the end of a word and are likely to have resulted from word final vowel deletion. [10]

Vowels

Abesabesi exhibits seven oral and five nasal vowels. While an ATR distinction exists for the oral mid vowels (/o/ vs. /ɔ/ and /e/ vs. /ɛ/), nasal vowels do not differentiate +ATR from -ATR (/ɔ̃/ and /ɛ̃/).[11]

Oral vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ɛ o ɔ
Open a
Nasal vowels
Front Central Back
Close ĩ ũ
Mid ɛ̃ ɔ̃
Open ã

Consonants

Abesabesi's consonant inventory consists of 29 consonants. While 20 of these consonants are frequently used in lexemes, nine only appear marginally (indicated in parentheses). Many of these marginal consonants are labialized equivalents of stops, nasals, and fricatives, such as /Template:IPA link/, /Template:IPA link/, and /Template:IPA link/. Agoyi treats these consonants as a result of deleted rounded vowels.[12] The phoneme /ʃ/ can be realized as Template:IPAblink or as the affricate Template:IPAblink.


Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Labial-velar Glottal
Plosive (Template:IPA link) Template:Ns Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:Ns Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:Ns Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:Ns Template:IPA link
Nasal Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:IPA link
Fricative Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link)
Affricate Template:IPA link
Lateral Template:IPA link
Approximant Template:IPA link Template:IPA link Template:Ns (Template:IPA link) Template:IPA link

See also

Further reading

  • Agoyi, Taiwo Ọpeyemi 1997. The category of number and the genetic classification of Èkiròmì. Seminar paper, University of Ilorin.
  • Ayoọla O.J. 1986. Aspects of the Phonology of Dája. BA long essay, University of Ilorin.
  • Blench, Roger. 2011. Comparative Akpes.
  • Ibrahim-Arirabiyi, Femi 1989. A comparative reconstruction of Akpes lects. MA thesis, Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Port Harcourt.
  • Lau, Jonas 2021. A Digital Reference Grammar of Abesabesi. Towards a data format for digital reference grammars. Doctoral Thesis, University of Cologne
  • Raji, B.T. 1986. Aspects of the phonology of Ikaramu. BA long essay, University of Ilorin.

References

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  1. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ a b Agoyi, T. O. (2008). The phonology of Àbèsàbèsì vowel harmony (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of Ilorin.
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".

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External links

Template:Volta-Niger languages Template:Niger-Congo branches

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