Abanyom language
Encyclopedia
Abanyom is a language of the Ekoid
subfamily of Niger–Congo
. It is spoken by the Abanyom people in the Cross River State
region of Nigeria
, numbering about 12,500 people in 1986. A member of the Southern Bantoid
group, Abanyom is fairly closely related to the Bantu languages
. It is tonal
and has a typical Niger–Congo noun class
system.
Ekoid languages
The Ekoid languages are a dialect cluster, such as Ekajuk and Ejagham , spoken principally in southeastern Nigeria and in adjacent regions of Cameroon. They have long been associated with the Bantu languages, without their status being precisely defined...
subfamily of Niger–Congo
Niger–Congo languages
The 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...
. It is spoken by the Abanyom people in the Cross River State
Cross River State
Cross River State is a coastal state in southeastern Nigeria, bordering Cameroon to the east. Its capital is at Calabar, and it is named for the Cross River , which passes through the state...
region of Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. 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 in...
, numbering about 12,500 people in 1986. A member of the Southern Bantoid
Southern Bantoid languages
In the classification of African languages, Southern Bantoid , also known as Wide Bantu or Bin, is a branch of the Bantoid languages of the Niger–Congo phylum...
group, Abanyom is fairly closely related to the Bantu languages
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
. It is tonal
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
and has a typical Niger–Congo noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
system.