Afenmai language

Afenmai (Afemai), or Yekhee, is an Edoid language spoken in Edo State, Nigeria by Afenmai people. Not all speakers recognize the name "Yekhee"; some use the district name Etsako.

Yekhee
Afenmai Kukuruku (outdated)
Etsako
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Edo State
Ethnicity	Afenmai
Native speakers	(270,000 cited 1995)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta–Niger yeai Edoid North-Central Yekhee–Ghotuo Yekhee
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ets
Glottolog	yekh1238

Previously the name used by British colonial administration was Kukuruku, supposedly after a battle cry "ku-ku-ruku",[2] now considered derogatory.[3]

Afenmai is unusual in reportedly having a voiceless tapped fricative as the "tense" equivalent of the "lax" voiced tap /ɾ/ (compare [aɾ̞̊u] 'hat' and [aɾu] 'louse'[4]), though is other descriptions it is described simply as a fricative and analyzed as the "lax" equivalent of the "tense" voiceless stop /t/.[5]

Etsako, a dialect of Edo itself, has its own dialects which are broadly divided into the "Iyekhe" and "Agbelọ" dialects, with the Iyekhe dialect being the more widely spoken.

Phonology

Vowels are /i e ɛ a ɔ o u/. Long vowels and the large number of diphthong in the language are derived from sequences of short vowels, often from the optional elision of /l/.

Afenmai has a complex system of morphotonemic alterations based on two phonemic tones, high and low. At the surface level there are five distinctive tones: high, low, falling, rising and mid. Mid tone is the result of downstep of a high tone after a low tone. The contour tones (falling and rising) either occur on long vowels or diphthongs, from a sequence of high+low or low+high, or on short vowels produced from the contraction of such a long vowel or diphthong. Rising tones are rather uncommon, as they tend to be replaced by high, low or mid.[5]

Consonants of the Ekpheli dialect are:

BL	LD	D	Av	PA	Ve	LV
mː m			n	(ɲ)
b p			t(ː) d		kː ɡː	k͡pː k͡p ɡ͡bː ɡ͡b
			ts dz	(tʃ dʒ)
	f v(ː)	θ	s	(ʃ)	x ɣ
ʋ			l	j		w
			ɾ

The consonants marked long have been analyzed in various ways, including 'tense' or 'fortis' and paired up with 'lax' or 'lenis' partners, though there is no phonological basis for grouping the supposed 'long' consonants together, or for partnering them with particular 'short' consonants. The clear cases are /k͡pː ɡ͡bː mː/, which are twice as long as /k͡p ɡ͡b m/ but otherwise identical in a spectrogram. /kː ɡː/ are likewise twice as long as /x ɣ/. However, alveolar /t/ is only slightly longer than dental /θ/, and while /v/ is longer than /ʋ/, that's to be expected for a fricative compared to an approximant.[5]

The postalveolar consonants are allophones of the alveolars before /i/ plus another vowel, where /i/ would otherwise become [j], as in /siesie/ [ʃeʃe] 'to be small'. It addition, /ts/ optionally becomes [tʃ] before a single /i/, as in /itsi/ 'pig' ([itsi] ~ [itʃi]). The other alveolar consonants do not have this variation, unless the triggering environment is provided within a prosodic word: /odzi/ 'crab' ([odzi] in citation form) > /odzi oɣie/ 'the king's crab' ([odʒoɣje]). (The sounds transcribed with ⟨ʃ ʒ ɲ⟩ may actually be closer to [ɕ ʑ nʲ].)

Apart from /p ts dz θ/, these consonants appear in all dialects of Afenmai investigated by Elimelech (1976). /p/ is absent from Uzairue dialect, being replaced by /f/, and is quite rare in most other dialects. /ts dz/ are fricativized to /s z/ in Aviele and South Uneme dialects. /θ/ is retracted to /ɹ̝̊/ in most other dialects, as in [aθu ~ aɹ̝̊u] 'hat'.[5]

Orthography

A B CH D E Ẹ F G GB GH I J K KH KP L M MH N NY O Ọ P R S SH T TS U V VH W Y Z.

Phrases

Etsako phrases include:

Etsako	English
Moo!	Well done
Abee!/See!	Hello (How is it?)
O somi/O chi	It is good. (Response)
Na ẹgbia	Good morning
Na ẹlẹ	(Response)
Agbelọ	Good morning
Agbe	(Response)
U vhẹẹ ze?	Hope you are fine.
Eli	Yes
U lẹ guẹ?	Did you sleep well?
A kpẹmi	We give thanks
Moo ota / Oviẹna / Togi	Good afternoon
Moo ogode / Obugala	Good evening
O ki akọ / O kila akhuẹ	Good night (until tomorrow)
O ki la	Goodbye
O ki idegbe	Until later
Lẹ khia / Guẹ khia	Go well.
R'ẹlo ku egbe	Take care.

Common Etsako phrases showing dialectical variations between Iyekhe and Agbelo:

English	Iyekhe	Agbelo
I am coming	I bade	Mi aa balẹ
Where are you?	Obo u ya?	Obo u la?
Where are you going to?	Obo u ye?	Obo u aa ye?
What do you want?	Eme u kele?	Elọ u aa nono?
This is my brother	Iyọkpa mẹ ki ọna	Inyọguo mẹ kh' ọna
I am hungry	Osami ọ gbe mẹ	Okiami o aa gbe mẹ

References

1. Yekhee at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Udo, Reuben K. (1970). Geographical Regions of Nigeria. University of California Press. p. 109.
3. "Etsako".
4. Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics, p. 263.
5. Elimelech (1976) "A Tonal Grammar of Etsako", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 35

External links

• Etsako Language Research And Development Centre (ELRDC)