Ukue (Epinmi) 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 ...
of
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 State to ...
,
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 sometimes considered the same language as
Ehuẹun.
Phonology
Ukue has a rather reduced system, compared to proto-Edoid, of seven vowels; these form two harmonic sets, and .
The language arguably has no phonemic nasal stops; alternate with , depending on whether the following vowel is oral or nasal. Unusually, it has fricatives but no
sibilants. The inventory is:
[Jeff Mielke, 2008. ''The emergence of distinctive features'', p 136''ff'';]
also found in ''Variation and gradience in phonetics and phonology'', p 26''ff''
(*See
Edo for a likely interpretation of the two rhotics.)
References
Edoid languages
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