Ijoid languages

Ijoid
Geographic
distribution
Southern Nigeria
Linguistic classificationNiger–Congo?
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologijoi1239

Ijoid is a proposed but undemonstrated group of languages linking the Ijaw languages (Ịjọ) with the endangered Defaka language. The similarities, however, may be due to Ijaw influence on Defaka.[1]

The Ijoid languages, or perhaps just Ijaw, are proposed to form a divergent branch of the hypothetical Niger–Congo family and are noted for their subject–object–verb basic word order, which is otherwise an unusual feature in Niger–Congo, shared only by such distant branches as Mande and Dogon. Like Mande and Dogon, Ijoid lacks even traces of the noun class system considered characteristic of Niger–Congo, and so might have split early from that family. Linguists Gerrit Dimmendaal and Tom Güldemann doubt its inclusion in Niger–Congo altogether and consider the Ijaw/Ijoid languages to be an independent family.[2] [3]

  1. ^ Roger Blench, Niger-Congo: an alternative view
  2. ^ Dimmendaal, Gerrit Jan (2011-01-01). Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-9027211781.
  3. ^ Babaev, Kirill. "Joseph Greenberg and the Current State of Niger-Congo".