Mbe language

This article is about the language of Nigeria and is not to be confused with the Mbe' language of Cameroon.

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.^[1] As the closest relative of the Ekoid family of the Southern Bantoid languages,^[3] Mbe is fairly close to the Bantu languages. It is tonal and has a typical Niger–Congo noun-class system.

Mbe
M̀bè
Pronunciation	[m̀bè]
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Ogoja, Cross River State
Ethnicity	Mbube people
Native speakers	65,000 (2011)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Ekoid–Mbe Mbe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mfo
Glottolog	mbee1249

People	Mbube[2]
Language	M̀bè

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.

m mʷ mʲ	n	ɲ ɲʷ	ŋ ŋʷ
p pʷ pʲ	t tʷ		k kʷ̜ kʷ̹ kʲ	kp
b bʷ bʲ	d dʷ		ɡ ɡʷ ɡʲ	ɡb
	ts tsʷ	tʃ tʃʷ
	dz dzʷ	dʒ dʒʷ
f fʷ	s sʷ	ʃ ʃʷ
	r rʷ lʲ
	l lʷ lʲ	j jʷ		w

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.