Ibibio-Efik languages
| Ibibio | |
|---|---|
| Central Lower Cross | |
| Ethnicity | |
| Geographic distribution | Cross River State, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria |
| Linguistic classification | Niger–Congo? |
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | efik1244 |
Central Ibibio is the major
Cross River branch of Benue–Congo. Efik proper has national status in Nigeria and was erroneously made the literary standard of the Ibibio language, though Ibibio proper
has more native speakers.
Varieties
Efik-Ibibio is a
dialect cluster spoken by about 15 million people of Akwa Ibom State and about 5 million people of Cross River States of Nigeria, making it the fifth largest language cluster in Nigeria after Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and Fulani
.
The major Efik-Ibibio languages are:
- Anaang (5.5 million speakers, 2018 estimate)
- Ibibio (15 million speakers, including L2 speakers, 2018 estimate)
- Efik (3 million speakers, 2018 estimate. Efik also has about 2 million second-language speakers.)
Minor varieties, according to Williamson and Blench,[a] are:
These arguably constitute a single language, though Ethnologue considers them to be separate.
See also
Notes
- ^ These are varieties of what Williamson and Blench (2000) calls "Central Lower Cross", which they list as "Efik, Ibibio, Anaang, Ibuoro, Ekit, Efai, etc."