Eruwa language

Ẹrụwa
Native toNigeria
RegionDelta State
Native speakers
64,000 (2004)[1]
Niger–Congo
  • Atlantic–Congo
    • Volta–Niger
      • yeai
        • Edoid
          • Southwestern
            • Ẹrụwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3erh
Glottologeruw1238
ELPErohwa[2]

Ẹrụwa is an Edoid language of Nigeria.

Phonology

The Ẹrụwa vowel system is hardly reduced from that reconstructed for proto-Edoid. There are nine vowels in two harmonic sets, /i e a o u/ and /ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ/.[3]

The language arguably has no phonemic nasal stops; [m, n] alternate with [b, l], depending on whether the following vowel is oral or nasal. The approximants /ʋ, ɹ, j, w/ also have nasal allophones. The inventory is:[4]

  Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labio-velar Glottal
Plosive p  b [m] t  d k  ɡ k͡p  ɡ͡b  
Fricative f  v s  z x  ɣ   h
Approximant   l [n]        
ʋ ɹ j   w  

References
  1. Ẹrụwa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Erohwa.
  3. Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff
  4. Jeff Mielke, 2008. The emergence of distinctive features, p 136ff;
    also found in Variation and gradience in phonetics and phonology, p 26ff


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