Mbembe language

Not to be confused with Tigon language, Mfumte language.

Mbembe
Native to	Nigeria
Native speakers	(100,000 cited 1982) [1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo languages Benue–Congo languages Cross River Upper Cross Central East–West Mbembe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mfn – inclusive code Individual code: oda  – Odut village
Glottolog	cros1244
ELP	Odut

Mbembe is a Cross River language of Nigeria. Odut, ^[2] a divergent variety spoken in a village far South of the rest of Mbembe, had 20 speakers in 1980 and may be extinct. ^[3]

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio- velar
Nasal	plain	m		n	ɲ	ŋ
	fortis	mː		nː
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p		t	t͡ʃ	k	k͡p
	voiced	b		d	d͡ʒ	ɡ	ɡ͡b
	fortis			tː		kː	k͡pː
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	f	s
	voiced	β	v
	fortis		fː	sː
Tap				ɾ
Approximant				l	j		w

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	(ɨ)	u
Near-high	(ɪ)		(ʊ)
High-mid	e eː		o oː
Low-mid	ɛ		ɔ ɔː
Low		a aː

Phoneme/Sound	Allophones	Occurrence
/i/ [i]	[ɨ]	in closed syllables except when following /j/ or palatalized consonants
	[ɪ]	in closed syllables when following /j/ or palatalized consonants
	[i]	elsewhere
/u/ [u]	[u̟]	in closed syllables except when following /w/ or labialized consonants
	[ʊ]	in extended syllable-pieces except when following /w/ or labialized consonants
	[u]	elsewhere

^[4]

References

1. Mbembe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Odut village at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Blench (2013) An Atlas of Nigerian Languages
3. "Odut". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
4. Barnwell, Katherine Grace Lowry (1969). A Grammatical Description of Mbembe (Adun Dialect)- A cross river language. University College London.