The
Defaka language is an
IjoidThe Ijoid languages are spoken by the Ịjọ and Defaka peoples of the Niger Delta, who number about ten million. The most populous language by far is Izon, with about a million speakers, followed by Okrike-Kalabari with over a half million. The family is generally divided in two branches, Ịjọ and...
branch of the
Niger-Congo languagesThe Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
, spoken in
NigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger...
. It is an
endangered languageAn endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes an extinct language.The total number of contemporary languages in the world is not known...
.
Ethnically, the Defaka are distinct from the
NkorooNkoroo is a town in the Bonny territory of Rivers State, Nigeria. It is the home of the Nkoroo people....
, but they have assimilated to Nkoroo culture to such a degree that their language seems to be the only sign of a distinct Defaka identity. Use of the Defaka language however is quickly receding in favour of the language of the Nkoroo. Nowadays, most Defaka speakers are elderly people, and even among these, Defaka is rarely spoken — the total number of Defaka speakers is at most 200 nowadays (SIL/Ethnologue 15th ed.).
The
Defaka language is an
IjoidThe Ijoid languages are spoken by the Ịjọ and Defaka peoples of the Niger Delta, who number about ten million. The most populous language by far is Izon, with about a million speakers, followed by Okrike-Kalabari with over a half million. The family is generally divided in two branches, Ịjọ and...
branch of the
Niger-Congo languagesThe Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
, spoken in
NigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger...
. It is an
endangered languageAn endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes an extinct language.The total number of contemporary languages in the world is not known...
.
Ethnically, the Defaka are distinct from the
NkorooNkoroo is a town in the Bonny territory of Rivers State, Nigeria. It is the home of the Nkoroo people....
, but they have assimilated to Nkoroo culture to such a degree that their language seems to be the only sign of a distinct Defaka identity. Use of the Defaka language however is quickly receding in favour of the language of the Nkoroo. Nowadays, most Defaka speakers are elderly people, and even among these, Defaka is rarely spoken — the total number of Defaka speakers is at most 200 nowadays (SIL/Ethnologue 15th ed.). The decrease in use of Defaka is stronger in Nkoroo town than in the Iwoma area. All children grow up speaking
NkorooNkọrọọ is a Niger Congo language spoken by about 4500 ethnic Nkọrọọ in Rivers State, Nigeria....
(an
Ijo languageỊjọ is a group of languages spoken in southern Nigeria, by the Ịjọ people.See Ijoid languages for details....
) as a first language. The next most used language among the Defaka is
IgboIgbo is a language spoken by some 18 million mainly Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria, in the region once identified as Biafra and parts of the Niger Delta. The language was used by John Goldsmith as an example to justify deviating from the classical linear model of phonology as laid out in The...
, owing to the political influence of the
OpoboOpobo is an area in southern Nigeria. It did not exist as such until 1870. From pre-historic time, what become known as Opobo was formerly known as Ikot Abasi which was one of the communities in the old Calabar Province . It was and still is a coastal community . Next to it was Bonny...
since the days of the Oil Rivers Trade. Igbo has been a language of instruction in many schools in the region and still functions as a regional
trade languageA lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or...
.
The Defaka language is related to the
IjoỊjọ is a group of languages spoken in southern Nigeria, by the Ịjọ people.See Ijoid languages for details....
languages, showing quite a lot of lexical similarities, some shared regular sound correspondences and some grammatical similarities with proto-Ijo. While some of the lexical similarities can be attributed to borrowing (as Defaka has been in close contact with Ijo for more than 300 years), especially the sound correspondences and the grammatical similarities point to a (somewhat distant) genetic relationship. For example, both languages have a
Subject Object VerbIn linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order...
basic word order, which is otherwise extremely rare in the
Niger-CongoThe Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
language family, being found only in the
MandeThe Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé people and include Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mende, Susu, Yacouba, Vai, and Ligbi...
and
DogonThe Dogon languages are spoken by the Dogon in Mali. There are about 600,000 speakers of a dozen languages. They are tonal languages, most like Dogul Dom having two tones, some like Donno So having three....
branches.
- a ebere ko̘ a okuna b̘ááma (the dog SUBJECT the fowl kill:PAST) The dog killed the fowl (Defaka)
- obiri b̘é o̘b̘ó̘kō̘ b̘é b̘ám̄ (dog the fowl the kill:PAST) The dog killed the fowl (I̘jo̘, Kalab̘ari̘ dialect)
Also, Defaka has a
sex-genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
system distinguishing at least between masculine and feminine, once again a rarity among South Central Niger-Congo languages other than Ijoid and Defaka.
These similarities have led to the inclusion of Defaka in the
IjoidThe Ijoid languages are spoken by the Ịjọ and Defaka peoples of the Niger Delta, who number about ten million. The most populous language by far is Izon, with about a million speakers, followed by Okrike-Kalabari with over a half million. The family is generally divided in two branches, Ịjọ and...
branch of
Niger-CongoThe Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
. Within Ijoid, Defaka constitutes a branch distinct from the main group of Ijoid languages,
IjoỊjọ is a group of languages spoken in southern Nigeria, by the Ịjọ people.See Ijoid languages for details....
.
Phonology
Nearly all Defaka are bilingual in Nkọrọọ, and the phonology appears to be the same as that language.
Tone
Defaka has two
tonesTone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but...
, and . On long vowels and diphthongs, as well as disyllabic words, and contours occur. In addition, there is a downstep that may appear between high tones, and which is the remnant of an elided low tone. However, Shryock et al. were not able to measure significant differences in the pitch traces of , , and –downstep–, all of which have a falling pitch, suggesting that there may be fewer distinctive word tones than the combinations of syllable tones would suggest. However, these all clearly contrast with level-pitched and rising-pitched .
Vowels
The Ijoid
vowel-harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be found near each other....
has collapsed in Defaka, as it has in Nkọrọọ. There are seven oral vowels, , though and are uncommon. There are five nasal vowels, . All may occur long. Long vowels are at least twice as long as short vowels.
Consonants
| | Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar
~ palatal | Velar | Labial
velar |
|---|
| Nasal |
m |
n |
|
(ŋ) |
(ŋ͡m) |
| Implosive |
ɓ |
|
|
|
|
| Plosive |
p b |
t d |
|
k ɡ |
k͡p ɡ͡b |
| Affricate |
|
|
d͡ʒ ~ z |
|
|
| Fricative |
f v |
s |
|
|
|
Lateral
approximant |
|
l |
|
|
|
Tap ~ central
approximant |
|
ɾ ~ ɹ |
j |
|
w |
Most voiceless
obstruentAn obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes, obstruents and sonorants....
s are
tenuisA tenuis consonant is a stop or affricate which is unvoiced, unaspirated, and unglottalized. That is, it has a "plain" phonation like , with a voice onset time close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or English p, t, k after s, as in spy, sty, sky.Tenuis consonant are not normally marked...
. However, has a slightly negative
voice onset timeIn phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop-consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, begins in unvoiced aspirated stops...
. That is, voicing commences somewhat before the consonant is released, as in English "voiced" stops such as
b. This is typical of labial-velar stops. , on the other hand, is fully voiced, as are the other voiced obstruents. Shryock et al. analyze the prenasalized stops as
consonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s with . varies with , with some speakers using one, some the other, and some either, depending on the word.
and may be nasalized before nasal vowels.
The velar plosives & may be
lenitedLenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change of languages....
to or between vowels.
The tap is pronounced as an approximant, , by some speakers. It only occurs between vowels and at the ends of words.
External links