Mbe language

This article is about the language of Nigeria. Not to be confused with the Mbe' language of Cameroon.
Mbe
M̀bè
Pronunciation[m̀bè]
Native toNigeria
RegionOgoja, Cross River State
EthnicityMbube people
Native speakers
65,000 (2011)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mfo
Glottologmbee1249
PeopleMbube[2]
LanguageM̀bè

Mbe is a language spoken by the Mbube people of the Ogoja, Cross River State region of Nigeria, numbering about 65,000 people in 2011.[1] As the closest relative of the Ekoid family of the Southern Bantoid languages,[3] Mbe is fairly close to the Bantu languages. It is tonal and has a typical Niger–Congo noun-class system.

  1. ^ a b Mbe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ekoid–Mbe". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.