GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

This paper is an overview description of some linguistics features of the Ikwere language. Ikwere is spoken in four (Emohua, Ikwerre, Obio/Akpor and part of Port Harcourt) local government areas of Rivers State of Nigeria. It comprises twenty-four mutually intelligible dialects. Ikwere is an Igboid language of the West Benue-Congo family of the Niger-Congo Phylum of languages. The language records twenty-eight phonemic consonants, nine phonemic oral vowels and eight phonemic nasalized vowels. As a tone language, it has two level (high [ ́ ] and low [` ]) tones; a downstep [↓], and two contour (falling [ ˆ ] and rising [ ̌ ]) tones. The syllable structures of the language are V, and N, CV and CGV. Among other things, the work observed that verb inflections in Ikwere are marked predominantly by suffixes, sparingly by auxiliaries accompanied by prefixal element, and or tonal modifications. Conversely, verb derivation is predominantly marked by attaching prefixes to verb root to form gerunds, agentives, instrumentals, etc. It is believed that this study will be relevant to scholars interested in language study as the insight provided here will serve as a motivation to explore certain linguistic features of other languages.