Edo language

Edo
Bini
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Edo State
Ethnicity	Edo
Native speakers	2 million (2020)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Volta–Niger Akpes-Edoid Edoid North-Central Edo–Esan–Ora Edo
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	Template:ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	bin
Glottolog	bini1246
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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Location of Edo speakers in Nigeria.

Edo ( ; English: /ˈɛdoʊ/, ), also known as Bini, is the language spoken by the Edo people in Edo State, Nigeria. It was the primary language of the Benin Empire and its predecessor, Igodomigodo. It is the majority language spoken in Edo State, particularly in Benin City, and the surrounding local governments and senatorial districts in the Southern parts of the State.

Distribution

Most of the Edo language-speakers live in the Southern parts of Edo State, Nigeria. The current state: Edo State derives its name from the Edo speaking people of the state. A smaller number of Edo speakers are also found in Delta State and Ondo State and in other parts of Nigeria.

Edo is an Edoid language. These languages are also spoken in Rivers State and Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Phonology

Vowels

There are seven vowels, , all of which but can also occur nasalised. Additionally, all vowels are phonetically nasalised in the immediate vicinity of a nasal consonant or vowel.

	Front		Central		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
Close	i	ĩ			u	ũ
Close-mid	e				o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛ̃			ɔ	ɔ̃
Open			a	ã

Consonants

Edo has a rather average consonant inventory for an Edoid language. It maintains only a single phonemic nasal, , but has 13 oral consonants, and the 8 stops, which have nasal allophones such as , and nasalized allophones before nasal vowels.

	Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Nasal	m
Plosive	p  b		t  d		k  ɡ	k͡p  ɡ͡b
Fricative		f  v	s  z		x  ɣ		ɦ
Trill			r
Close approximant			ɹ̝̊  ɹ̝
Open approximant		ʋ [ʋ̃]	l [n]	j [ɲ] [j̃]		w [ŋʷ] [w̃]

The three rhotics have been described as voiced and voiceless trills as well as a lax English-type approximant. However, found all three to be approximants – with the voiced–voiceless pair being raised (albeit with very little frication) and perhaps at a slightly different place of articulation compared to the third – and none as trills.

Tone

There are three tones.

Phonotactics

Syllable structure is simple, being maximally CVV, where VV is either a long vowel or plus a different oral or nasal vowel.

Orthography

The Edo alphabet has separate letters for the nasalised allophones of and , mw and n:

A

B

D

E

Ẹ

F

G

Gb

Gh

H

I

K

Kh

Kp

L

M

Mw

N

O

Ọ

P

R

Rh

Rr

S

T

U

V

Vb

W

Y

Z

Long vowels are written by doubling the letter. Nasal vowels may be written with a final -n or with an initial nasal consonant. Tone may be written with acute accent, grave accent, and unmarked, or with a final -h (-nh with a nasal vowel).

See also

• Edo people
• Edo literature
• Benin Empire

Sources

• Adénéyì, Harrison 'Rótìmí (2007). A morphology of Edo (MA thesis). University of Ibadan. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3625750.
• Emovon, Joshua A. (1979). A phonological study of Edo (Bini), with special reference to the verbal phrase (MPhil thesis). SOAS, University of London. doi:10.25501/SOAS.00029261.
• Evbuomwan, Osaigbovo O. (2025), An Overview of Ẹdo Sounds and Some Phonological Conditions, University of Benin

Further reading

• Adeniyi, Harrison (2007). "A comparative study of reduplication in Edo and Yoruba". MorphOn: e-Journal of Morphology: 1–23.
• Ajiboye, Oladiipo Jacob (2001). "A comparative study of Èdó and Yorùbá gerunds". University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics. 4.
• Aluede, Charles O.; Braimah, Abu A. (2005). "Edo folk songs as sources of historical reconstruction". Studies of Tribes and Tribals. 3 (2): 123–128. doi:10.1080/0972639X.2005.11886528. S2CID 49571460.
• Baker, Mark C. On the Interplay of the Universal and the Particular: Case Studies from Edo. 35th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society. Chicago.
• Baker, Mark C.; Osumuyimen, Thompson Stewart (2001). "Unaccusativity and the adjective/verb distinction: Èdó evidence". University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics. 4.
• Dunn, Ernest F. (1968). An Introduction to Bini. African Monograph. Vol. 8. assisted by Agheyisi, Rebecca N. East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University. LCCN 77629241. OCLC 614956253.
• Imasuen, Ekhato Otamere (1998–1999). "Languages in contact: the case of Edo and Portuguese". Journal of West African Languages. 27: 39–50.
• Manfredi, Victor B. (2003). "A fonosyntactic parameter within Benue-Kwa and its consequences for Edó". In Sauzet, Patrick; Zribi-Hertz, Anne (eds.). Typologie des langues d'Afrique et universaux de la grammaire. Paris: L'Harmattan. pp. 127–162.
• Morrison, Megan (2001). "Plurality and multiplicity in Èdó and English". University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics. 4.
• Naumann, Ralf; Gamerschlag, Thomas (2020). "Serial verb constructions and covert coordinations in Edo – an analysis in Type Logical Grammar". Journal of Language Modelling. 8: 337–413.
• Ogie, Ota (2001). "Some comments on Èdó syntax". Africa & Asia: Göteborg working papers on Asian and African languages and literatures. 1: 50–59. S2CID 64227751.
• Ogie, Ota (2003). "About Multi-verb Constructions in Edo". Proceedings of the workshop on Multi-Verb constructions (PDF). Trondheim Summer School.
• Ogie, Ota (2009). Multi-Verb Constructions in È̱DÓ (PhD thesis). NTNU. hdl:11250/243996.
• Omozuwa, Edosa Victor (1998). "A spectrographic study of Edo [ɹ] and [l]". Onsei Kenkyu: Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan. 2 (3). Archived from the original on 8 May 2022.
• Sheedy, Cory R. C. (2001). "Grammatical tones in Èdó: an optimality theoretic account". University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics. 4.
• Wescott, Roger W. (1962). A Bini grammar. Vol. 1: Phonology. East Lansing: African Languages and Area Center, Michigan State University.
• Wescott, Roger W. (1962). A Bini grammar. Vol. 2: Morphology. East Lansing: African Languages and Area Center, Michigan State University.
• Woo, Florence Fung Lam (2001). "Serial verb constructions in Èdó and Cantonese". University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics. 4.
• Yuka, Lendzemo Constantine; Mercy, Omoregbe (2006). "Re as a post-verbal free form in Edo: a morpho-semantic re-analysis". MorphOn: e-Journal of Morphology: 1–13.

External links

• Edo Language Dictionary Online
• Hans Melzian's Edo-English Dictionary
• Rebecca Agheyisi's Edo-English Dictionary
• Centre for Edo Studies
• PanAfrican L10n page on Edo (Bini)
• Edo/Africa names dictionary{source Edoworld}
• Bini (Edo) wordlists and recordings at the UCLA Phonetics Archive
• Bini (Edo) Market Days Calender [sic] on Naija local