The Edoid languages are a few dozen languages spoken in Southern Nigeria, predominantly in the former Bendel State. The name Edoid derives from its most widely spoken member, Edo, the language of Benin City, which has 30 million native and secondary speakers.

Classification

Elugbe (1989)

The following classification is based on that of Elugbe (1989). Ihievbe and Aduge are unclassified within their branches.

Lewis (2013)

An alternative classification of the Edoid languages by Lewis (2013:160): Lewis's study is an improvement on Elugbe's classification, as more languages were identified and classified. However, omitted the Uvbie of the South-Western Edoid branch (cf. Emoefe et al. (2017). )

Names and locations

Below is a list of language names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019).

Comparative vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary for some northern Edoid languages from Lewis (2013):

Phonology

Proto-Edoid is reconstructed as having a contrast between oral and nasal consonants and oral and nasal vowels typical for the region. However, in some Edoid languages nasal vowels have been reanalyzed as allophones of oral vowels after nasal consonants, and in others nasal consonants have been reanalyzed as allophones of oral consonants before nasal vowels, reducing the number of phonemically nasal consonants. Urhobo retains three nasals,, and has five oral consonants with nasal allophones, ; in Edo this is reduced to one phonemic nasal, , but eight additional consonants with nasal allophones, ; and in Ukue there are no indisputably phonemic nasals and only two consonants with nasal allophones,.