Ogoni languages

Ogoni
Ogoni
Kegboid
Ethnicity	Ogoni people
Geographic; distribution	SE Nigeria
Linguistic classification	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Cross River Ogoni; ; ; ;
Subdivisions	East; West;
Glottolog	ogon1240

The Ogoni languages, or Kegboid languages, are the five languages of the Ogoni people of Rivers State, Nigeria.

They fall into two clusters, East and West, with a limited degree of mutual intelligibility between members of each cluster. The Ogoni think of the cluster members as separate languages, however.

The classification of the Ogoni languages is as follows:

East: Khana and Tẹẹ, with around 1,800,000 speakers between them, and Gokana, with about 250,000.
West: Eleme, with about 90,000 speakers, and Baan, with around 50,500.

Names and locations

Below is a list of language names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019).^[1]

Language	Branch	Dialects	Alternate spellings	Own name for language	Endonym(s)	Other names (location-based)	Other names for language	Speakers	Location(s)
Gokana	Kegboid							54,000 (1973 SIL)	Rivers State, Gokana–Tai–Eleme LGA
Khana	Kegboid	Yeghe, Nyokhana, Ken–Khana, Boúe, Kaa	Khana			Ogoni (ethnic and political term includes Gokana)		76,713 (1926 Talbot);^[2] 90,000 (SIL)	Rivers State, Khana/Oyigbo and Gokana–Tai–Eleme LGAs
Eleme	West							55,000 (1987 UBS)	Rivers State, Gokana–Tai–Eleme LGA
Tẹẹ	West		Tai	Tèẹ̀ ̣	Tèẹ̀ ̣			313,000 (2006)	Rivers State, Tèẹ̀ ̣Local Government Area (TALGA)
Baan		Ka-Ban, Kesari				Ban–Ogoi	Goi, Ogoi	Fewer than 5,000 (1990)	Rivers State, Gokana–Tai–Eleme LGA, Ban–Ogoi plus villages

References

Blench, Roger and Kay Williamson. 2008. The Ogoni languages: comparative word list and historical reconstructions.

This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 3.0 license.

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Ogoni languages

Names and locations

See also

References