Oko language (original) (raw)

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Niger–Congo dialect cluster spoken in Nigeria

Oko
Ogori-Magongo
ɔ̀kɔ́
Native to Nigeria
Region Kogi State
Native speakers 40,000 (2006)[1]
Language family Niger–Congo? Atlantic–CongoVolta–NigernoiOko
Dialects Oko Eni Osayen
Language codes
ISO 639-3 oks
Glottolog okoe1238

Oko (ɔ̀kɔ́), also known as Ogori-Magongo and Oko-Eni-Osayin, is a dialect cluster spoken in Nigeria. It appears to form a branch of the "Nupe–Oko–Idoma" (noi) group of Niger–Congo languages. The language is spoken in and around the towns of Ogori and Magongo in southwestern Kogi State and Edo state borders.

Oko is one of the Volta–Niger languages.

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) grouped Oko within the Idomoid languages.[2]

Geographical distribution

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According to Ethnologue, Oko is spoken in:

Oko is a dialect cluster consisting of (Ethnologue):

Below is a list of Ọkọ–Eni–Ọsayin language cluster names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019).[3]

Language Alternate spellings Other names (location-based) Speakers
Ọkọ Uku, Oko Ogori (town name), Gori 4,000 (1970??)
Ọsayin Osayin, Ọsayin Magongo (town name) 3,000 (1970??)
Eni 3,000 (1970??)

| | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Glottal | | | | ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Nasal | m | n | | | | | | | Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | | k | k͡p | | | Voiced | b | d | | g | ɡ͡b | | | | Affricate | Voiceless | | | t͡ʃ | | | | | Voiced | | | d͡ʒ | | | | | | Fricative | Voiceless | f | s | | | | h | | Voiced | | z | | | | | | | Trill | | r | | | | | | | Approximant | | l | j | | w | | |

| | Front | Central | Back | | | --------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Close | i | | u | | Close-mid | e | | o | | Open-mid | ɛ | | ɔ | | Low | | ä | |

Each vowel also has a nasal equivalent.[4]

  1. ^ Oko at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
  3. ^ Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
  4. ^ Atoyebi, Joseph Dele (2009). A Reference Grammar of Oko. Umuneke-Okpala, Nigeria: Leipzig University Press.