Eleme language

Eleme is a language spoken by Eleme people in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Eleme is a Niger-Congo language spoken by approximately 40-50,000 speakers in Rivers State in southeast Nigeria. It belongs to the Ogonoid (also known as Ogoni or Kegboid) language group, within the Cross River branch of Benue-Congo.^[2] Eleme language was originally divided into two mutual dialects of Nchia and Odido. Nchia spoken in six communities of Agbonchia, Akpajo, Alesa, Aleto, Alode and Ogale, while Odido dialect was spoken at Ebubu, Ekporo, Eteo and Onne, today, both dialects have submerged, with a few varying pronunciations.

Eleme
Native to	Nigeria
Native speakers	(58,000 cited 1990)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Cross River Eleme
Language codes
ISO 639-3	elm
Glottolog	elem1253

A unique feature of Eleme is that it uses reduplication to negate verbs.^[3]

Writing System

Eleme alphabet (2011)^[4]

a

b

ch

d

e

ɛ

f

g

gb

gw

h

i

j

k

kp

kw

l

m

n

nw

ny

o

ɔ

p

r

s

t

u

w

y

ʼ

Nasal vowels are indicated with a tilde ⟨ã ɛ̃ ĩ ɔ̃ ũ⟩.