Obolo language

Obolo (or Andoni) is a major Cross River language of Nigeria. Obolo is the indigenous name of a community in the eastern Delta of the River Niger, better known as Andoni (the origin of this latter name being uncertain).[2] Obolo refers to the people, the language as well as the land. It is an agglutinative and an SVO language.

Obolo
Andoni
Native toNigeria
RegionRivers State, Akwa Ibom State
EthnicityObolo people
Native speakers
318,000 (2011)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3ann
Glottologobol1243

Dialects

There are six major dialect groups in the language, namely: (from west to east): Ataba, Unyeada, Ngo, Okoroete, Iko and Ibot Obolo.[3] Ngo is the prestige dialect, hence the standard literary form of Obolo draws heavily from it.

Obolo literature
  • The Bible in Obolo was published by the Obolo Language and Bible Translation Organization in 2012. Obolo is the 23rd Nigerian language to have the complete Bible.[4]
  • An Obolo-language website was launched in 2016.[5]
  • The first literary material on Literature in the Mother-Tongue; a novel for Junior Secondary Schools and public readership, Mbuban Îchaka by Isidore Ene-Awaji © Obolo Language & Bible Translation Organization, was published in 2010.[6]

Writing System

Obolo language is written in the Latin script. The alphabet is as follows:

Obolo alphabet [7][8][9]
abchdefggb
gwijkkpkwlm
nn̄nwnyoọpr
s(sh)tu(v)wy(z)
  • The characters in bracket are dialect-specific.
  • Tone marks can be added to some letters. The tone bearers are the vowels a, e, i, o, ọ, u as well as m and n.

Obolo is a tone language. There are five tones in the language: low, high, mid, falling and rising tone.[10] In writing, only the low tone and falling tone are indicated.[11] Tones are marked compulsorily on the first syllables of verbs and verbal groups. For other classes of words, a standard literature will show the way to go.

Regulation

Obolo language is regulated by the Obolo Language and Bible Translation Organization (OLBTO), a community-owned research and development organization that does dialect surveys and research, oversees the development and introduction of new terminologies, publishes books in the language, etc.

References
  1. NBS (2011) Annual Abstract of Statistics. National Bureau of Statistics. Federal Republic of Nigeria. p. 26,64
  2. A History of Obolo (Andoni) in the Niger Delta. By Nkparom C. Ejituwu. Oron: Manson Publishing Company, in association with University of Port Harcourt Press, 1991. Pp. xiv +314
  3. Obolo in "Orthographies of Nigerian Languages Manual VI." Publisher: Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council. 2000.
  4. The 23rd Nigerian Language to Receive the Whole Bible https://web.archive.org/web/20190826001428/http://obolo.ngbible.com/about
  5. Ida Obolo http://www.obololanguage.org
  6. History of OLBTO https://obololanguage.org/ann/%C3%B2folek-olbto/mfufuk-ofolek-ikwaan%CC%84-usem-obolo-olbto-1984-2014
  7. Obololanguage.org 2015.
  8. "Reading and Writing Obolo: Obolo Alphabet" in "A Workshop Manual for Teaching Obolo." Pg. 1. © Obolo Language and Bible Translation Organisation (OLBTO), 2011.
  9. "Reading and Writing Obolo." Pg. 4. Andoni Language Committee and Rivers Readers Project, 1978.
  10. "Reading and Writing Obolo: Tone Marking" in "A Workshop Manual for Teaching Obolo." Pg. 1. © Obolo Language and Bible Translation Organisation (OLBTO), 2011.
  11. "Reading and Writing Obolo: About Marking of Tones in Bible" in "A Workshop Manual for Teaching Obolo." Pg. 9. © Obolo Language and Bible Translation Organisation (OLBTO), 2011.
Obolo language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator


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