Edo (with diacritics, ), colloquially called Bini (Benin), is a language spoken in

Edo State Edo, commonly known as Edo State, is a state located in the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. As of 2006 National population census, the state was ranked as the 24th populated state (3,233,366) in Nigeria, However there was controvers ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. It is the native language of the

Edo people The Edo or Benin people are an Edoid ethnic group primarily found in Edo State, Southern part of Nigeria. They speak the Edo language and are the descendants of the founders of the Benin Empire. They are closely related to other ethnic gr ...

and was the primary language of the

Benin Empire The Kingdom of Benin, also known as the Edo Kingdom, or the Benin Empire ( Bini: ') was a kingdom within what is now southern Nigeria. It has no historical relation to the modern republic of Benin, which was known as Dahomey from the 17th c ...

and its predecessor, Igodomigodo.

Distribution

Most of the Edo language-speakers live in

. A smaller number of speakers are also found in Delta State and

Ondo State Ondo State ( yo, Ìpínlẹ̀ Oǹdó) is a state in southwestern Nigeria. It was created on 3 February 1976 from the former Western State. It borders Ekiti State to the north, Kogi State to the northeast, Edo State to the east, Delta Stat ...

and in other parts of Nigeria. Edo is an

Edoid language The Edoid languages are a few dozen languages spoken in Southern Nigeria, predominantly in the former Bendel State. The name ''Edoid'' derives from its most widely spoken member, Edo, the language of Benin City, which has 25 million native and se ...

. This languages are also spoken in

Rivers State Rivers State, also known as Rivers, is a state in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria (Old Eastern Region). Formed in 1967, when it was split from the former Eastern Region, Rivers State borders include: Imo to the north, Abia and Akwa ...

and

Bayelsa State Bayelsa is one of the states in the South-South region of Nigeria, located in the core of the Niger Delta region. Bayelsa State was created in 1996 and was carved out from Rivers State, making it one of the newest states in the federation. Yena ...

, Nigeria.

Phonology

Vowels

There are seven vowels, , all of which may be long or nasal, and three tones.

Consonants

Edo has a rather average consonant inventory for an

. It maintains only a single phonemic nasal, , but has 13 oral consonants, and the 8 stops, which have nasal allophones such as , and nasalized allophones before nasal vowels. The three

rhotics In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including , in the Latin script and , in the Cyrillic script. Th ...

have been described as voiced and voiceless trills as well as a lax English-type approximant. However, Ladefoged found all three to be approximants, with the voiced–voiceless pair being raised (without being fricatives) and perhaps at a slightly different

place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...

compared to the third but not trills.

Phonotactics

Syllable structure is simple, being maximally CVV, where VV is either a long vowel or plus a different oral or nasal vowel.

Orthography

The Edo alphabet has separate letters for the nasalised allophones of and , ''mw'' and ''n'': Long vowels are written by doubling the letter. Nasal vowels may be written with a final -n or with an initial nasal consonant. Tone may be written with acute accent, grave accent, and unmarked, or with a final -h (-nh with a nasal vowel).

References

* Emovon, Joshua A. (1979). A phonological study of Edo (Bini), with special reference to the verbal phrase. University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (United Kingdom)

External links

Edo Language Dictionary Online

Hans Melzian's Edo-English Dictionary

Rebecca Agheyisi's Edo-English Dictionary

Centre for Edo Studies

PanAfrican L10n page on Edo (Bini)

at the UCLA Phonetics Archive
Bini (Edo) Market Days
on Naija local {{Authority control Edoid languages Languages of Nigeria