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Mbe is a language spoken by the Mbube people of the Ogoja, Cross River State region of Nigeria, numbering about 65,000 people in 2011. As the closest relative of the Ekoid family of the Southern Bantoid languages, Mbe is fairly close to the Bantu languages. It is tonal and has a typical Niger–Congo noun-class system.

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels are i e ɛ a ɔ o u.

Consonants

Mbe has a rather elaborate consonant inventory compared to the Ekoid languages, presumably due to contact from neighbouring Upper Cross River languages.

All Mbe consonants apart from the labial–velars (kp ɡb w) and n have labialised counterparts. (/jʷ/ is presumably [ɥ].) In addition, the non-labialised peripheral stops (m p b k ɡ; palatalised ŋ would be ɲ) and the liquids (l r) have palatalised counterparts.

There are a few consonants that only occur in ideophones, such as /fʲ hʲ/.

An interesting additional contrast is between fortis and lenis /kʷ/. Fortis (long?) /kʷ̹/ half-rounds a following vowel such as /e/, whereas lenis /kʷ̜/ does not. This distinction may be being lost. (Blench)

Tone

Tones are high, low, rising, falling and a downstep; rising and falling may be tone sequences.

References

• Roger Blench, 'Ekoid' (with Mbe)

1. ^ Mbe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
3. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ekoid–Mbe". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

External links

• Global Recordings Network: Mbe

• Ekoid languages
• Languages of Nigeria
• Southern Bantoid languages