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Jagham language
Ekoi
Ejagham
Native toNigeria, Cameroon
EthnicityEkoi people
Native speakers
(120,000 cited 2000)[1]
Dialects
  • Akin
  • Bendeghe
  • Northern Etung
  • Southern Etung
  • Ekwe
  • Akamkpa-Ejagham
  • Keaka
  • Obang
  • Nkim
  • Nkum
  • Ekajuk
Nsibidi, Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3etu
Glottologejag1239
  Ejagham

The Jagham language, Ejagham, also known as Ekoi, is an Ekoid language of Nigeria and Cameroon spoken by the Ekoi people. The E- in Ejagham represents the class prefix for "language", analogous to the Bantu ki- in KiSwahili

The Ekoi are one of several peoples who use Nsibidi ideographs, and may be the ones that created them.

Dialects

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Ekoi is dialectally diverse. The dialects of Ejagham are divided into Western and Eastern groups:

  • Western varieties include Bendeghe, Northern and Southern Etung, Ekwe and Akamkpa-Ejagham;
  • Eastern varieties include Keaka and Obang.[2]

Blench (2019) also lists Ekin as an Ejagham dialect.[3]

Phonology

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Consonants

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Labial Alveolar Post-alv./
Palatal 		Velar Labio-
velar
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive/
Affricate 		voiceless p t t͡ʃ k k͡p
voiced b d d͡ʒ ɡ ɡ͡b
Fricative voiceless f s
voiced (β) (ɣ)
Tap ɾ
Approximant j w
  • Stop sounds /b, ɡ/ are lenited to fricatives [β, ɣ] when in intervocalic positions.
  • Velar sounds [k, ɡ; (ɣ)] can be heard as uvular [q, (ʁ)] when in syllable-final position.[4]

Vowels

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Front Central Back
Close i ʉ[a] u
Close-mid e[b] ə o[b]
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a
  1. ^ Occurs as unrounded /ɨ/ in the eastern Ejagham dialect. Does not occur in the southern dialect.
  2. ^ a b Only occurs in the southern Ejagham dialect.

Writing system

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A Jagham alphabet was developed by John R. Watters and Kathie Watters in 1981.

Western Jagham alphabet[5]
a b bh ch d e ə f g gb gh i j k kp m n ny ŋ o p r s t u ʉ w y

Morphology

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Ekoi has the following noun classes, listed here with their Bantu equivalents. Watters (1981) says there are fewer than in Bantu because of mergers (class 4 into 3, 7 into 6, etc.), though Blench notes that there is no reason to think that the common ancestral language had as many noun classes as proto-Bantu.

Noun class Prefix Concord
1 N- w, ɲ
2 a- b
3 N- m
5 ɛ- j
6 a- m
8 bi- b
9 N- j, ɲ
14 ɔ- b
19 i- f

('N' stands for a homorganic nasal. 'j' is "y".)

References

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