| Ekoi | |
|---|---|
| Ejagham | |
| Spoken in | Nigeria, Cameroon |
| Ethnicity | Ekoi people |
| Native speakers | 117,000 (2000) |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | etu |
The Ekoi language, also known as Ejagham, is an Ekoid language (Niger–Congo family) of Nigeria and Cameroon.
Ekoi is dialectically diverse. Western varieties include Etung and Bendeghe; eastern Keaka and Obang.
The Ekoi are one of several peoples who use nsibidi ideographs, and may be the ones that created them.
Ekoi has the following noun classes, listed here with their Bantu equivalents. Watters (1981) says there are fewer than in Bantu because of mergers (class 4 into 3, 7 into 6, etc.), though Blench notes that there is no reason to think that the common ancestral language had as many noun classes as proto-Bantu.
| Noun class | Prefix | Concord |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | N- | w, ɲ |
| 2 | a- | b |
| 3 | N- | m |
| 5 | ɛ- | j |
| 6 | a- | m |
| 8 | bi- | b |
| 9 | N- | j, ɲ |
| 14 | ɔ- | b |
| 19 | i- | f |
('N' stands for a homorganic nasal. 'j' is "y".)