Central Delta languages: An overview

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the phonology, morphology and syntax of Central Delta languages. It also provides information on the geo-linguistic, demographic and sociolinguistic situation of these languages. It notes that Central Delta languages have a 20-vowel system, which divides into two sets of 10 vowels distinguished by pharyngeal size. The consonant systems of these languages range between 22 and 27, showing alternation between some pairs of consonants. Central Delta languages are noted to be rich in nominal and verbal morphologies, showing evidence of prefixal noun classification and morphological marking of nominal and verbal categories. The pronominal systems of these languages make a threeway number-person-case distinction with some of them formally distinguishing between inclusive and exclusive in their first-person plural forms. Common syntactic features observed in these languages include subject-object-verb basic word order and serial verb constructions. The paper highlights the fact that mother-tongue speakers of Central Delta languages also speak one or more other languages and that the daily exposure of Central Delta languages and their speakers to more powerful languages around them makes them endangered. Furthermore, the paper recommends that a survey be undertaken to determine the level of endangerment of Central Delta languages.Keywords: Nigeria, Central Delta languages, nominal and verbal systems, morphology, language endangerment IntroductionThis paper aims at presenting an overview of the phonology, morphology and syntax of Central Delta languages, including some information on the geo-linguistic, demographic and sociolinguistic situation of these languages. It is divided into six sections. Section 1 introduces the aim of the study and presents geo-linguistic and demographic information and the sources of data. In section 2, information on the linguistic classification and sociolinguistic situation of Central Delta languages is provided. The phonological, 1 I am thankful to Ozo-Mekuri Ndimele for the valuable information he provided on Ọ chi ̣chi ̣ and to Salem Ejeba for the sundry help he offered in the course of writing this paper. I am also thankful to the two anonymous Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics reviewers for their incisive and enlightening comments that have made this paper richer and better than what it was.

Analysis of infections, recoveries and deaths from COVID-19 in rivers state, Nigeria

“…Rivers State has average temperatures ranging between 25°C and 28°C, relative humidity usually above 60% throughout the year and rainfall is seasonal occurring between the months of March and November with peak of wet season usually in July. The inland part of the state around the coastal areas consists of tropical rainforest with typical mangrove swamp environments and the capital city of Rivers State is Port Harcourt (12) which is regarded as the commercial hub of Nigerian oil industry.…”

“…Rivers State was created by Nigerian government in the year 1967 and it comprises of minority ethnic groups, some of whom are Ikwerre, Ogoni, Ijaw and Okrika people (12). Presence of petroleum industry has increased revenue for Nigerian government and has attracted other ethnic groups and nationalities.…”

Verb Inflectional Morphology in Ikwere

“…Like what obtains in Central Delta languages (cf. Kari, 2017a), ATR vowel harmony in Ikwere is feature-driven, as the ±ATR feature of vowels of the base spreads on to bound morphemes, such as prefixes and suffixes, that attach to the base, causing them to harmonize with the base (see also Alerechi, 2009: 122), although in some verb forms, the affixes are opaque to vowel harmony. A phonemic chart of Ikwere vowels is given in Figure 1:…”