Ijoid is a proposed but undemonstrated group of languages linking the
Ijaw languages
The Ijaw languages (), also spelled Ịjọ, are the languages spoken by over 14 million Ijaw people in Nigeria.
Classification
The Ijo languages were traditionally considered a distinct branch of the Niger–Congo family (perhaps along with ...
(Ịjọ) with the endangered
Defaka language
Defaka is an endangered language, endangered and divergent Nigeria, Nigerian language of uncertain classification. It is spoken in the Opobo–Nkoro Local government area, LGA of Rivers State, in the Defaka or Afakani ward of Nkọrọ town and ...
. The similarities, however, may be due to Ijaw influence on Defaka.
The Ijoid languages, or perhaps just Ijaw, are proposed to form a divergent branch of the hypothetical
Niger–Congo family and are noted for their
subject–object–verb basic word order, which is otherwise an unusual feature in Niger–Congo, shared only by such distant branches as
Mande
Mande may refer to:
* Mandé peoples of western Africa
* Mande languages, their Niger-Congo languages
* Manding languages, Manding, a term covering a subgroup of Mande peoples, and sometimes used for one of them, Mandinka people, Mandinka
* Garo p ...
and
Dogon. Like Mande and Dogon, Ijoid lacks even traces of the
noun class
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...
system considered characteristic of Niger–Congo, and so might have split early from that family. Linguists
Gerrit Dimmendaal and
Tom Güldemann doubt its inclusion in Niger–Congo altogether and consider the Ijaw/Ijoid languages to be an independent family.
Comparative vocabulary
Sample basic vocabulary for Proto-
Ijaw Ijaw may refer to:
*Ijaw people
The Ijaw people, also known as the Izon people, are an ethnic group found in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria, with primary Population, population clusters in Bayelsa State, Bayelsa, Delta State, Delta, and River ...
,
Kalabari, and
Defaka:
Numerals
Comparison of numerals in individual languages:
Bibliography
*Jenewari, Charles E. W. (1989) 'Ijoid'. In Bendor-Samuel, John and Hartell, Rhonda L. (eds.), ''The Niger–Congo languages: A classification and description of Africa's largest language family'', 105-118. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
*Williamson, Kay. 1969. 'Igbo' and 'Ịjọ', chapters 7 and 8 in: Twelve Nigerian Languages, ed. by E. Dunstan. Longmans.
*Williamson, Kay. 1971. The Benue–Congo languages and Ịjọ. In: Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. 7, series ed. by T. A. Sebeok, 245-306.
*Williamson, Kay. 1988. Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of the Niger Delta. In: The Prehistory of the Niger Delta, ed. by E.J. Alagoa and others. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
*Williamson, Kay. 1998. Defaka revisited. The multi-disciplinary approach to African history, edited by Nkparom C. Ejituwu, Chapter 9, 151-183. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press.
*Williamson, Kay. 2004. The language situation in the Niger Delta. Chapter 2 in: The development of Ịzọn language, edited by Martha L. Akpana, 9-13.
*Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger–Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) ''African Languages: An Introduction.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11–42.
References
External links
Ijoid materials(Roger Blench)
{{Niger-Congo branches
Niger–Congo languages
Language families