| Mbe | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | [m̀bè] |
| Spoken in | Nigeria |
| Region | Cross River State |
| Ethnicity | Mbube people |
| Native speakers | unknown (14,300 cited 1973) |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mfo |
Mbe is a language spoken by the Mbube people of the Ogoja, Cross River State, region of Nigeria, numbering about 14,300 people in 1973.[1] As the closest relative of the Ekoid family of the Southern Bantoid languages, Mbe is fairly close to the Bantu languages. It is tonal and has a typical Niger–Congo noun-class system.
Vowels are i e ɛ a ɔ o u. Tones are high, low, rising, falling, and a downstep; rising and falling may be tone sequences.
Mbe has a rather elaborate consonant inventory compared to the Ekoid languages, presumably due to contact from neighboring Upper Cross River languages.
All Mbe consonants apart from the labial–velars (kp ɡb w) and n have labialized counterparts. (/jʷ/ is presumably [ɥ].) In addition, the non-labialized peripheral stops (m p b k g; palatalized ŋ would be ɲ) and the liquids (l r) have palatalized counterparts.
| m mʷ mʲ | n | ɲ ɲʷ | ŋ ŋʷ | |
| p pʷ pʲ | t tʷ | k kʷ̜ kʷ̹ kʲ | kp | |
| b bʷ bʲ | d dʷ | ɡ ɡʷ ɡʲ | ɡb | |
| ts tsʷ | tʃ tʃʷ | |||
| dz dzʷ | dʒ dʒʷ | |||
| f fʷ | s sʷ | ʃ ʃʷ | ||
| r rʷ lʲ | ||||
| l lʷ lʲ | j jʷ | w |
There are a few consonants that only occur in ideophones, such as /fʲ hʲ/.
An interesting additional contrast is between fortis and lenis /kʷ/. Fortis (long?) /kʷ̹/ half-rounds a following vowel such as /e/, whereas lenis /kʷ̜/ does not. This distinction may be being lost. (Blench)