A Tentative Phonological Sketch of Olùkùmi

Abstract

This paper presents a tentative descriptive analysis of the phonological sketch of Olùkùmi, a language spoken in some parts of Delta State, Nigeria. In this study we examine the variety spoken in Ugbodu which has about 14,000 speakers. The data here come from the interview with the youths and elderly in Ugbodu community who were chosen randomly including the king of the town. With the aid of the KWASU 500 wordlist, we examine the consonant sounds, vowel systems, tones and the peculiarities of some of these sounds in the language. We equally examine the syllable structure and some other phonological features such as: vowel harmony and nasalization. The findings amongst others show that Olùkùmi is a tonal language as tone plays a significant role both lexically and syntactically in  the language. Also, it attests to an open syllable structure and exhibits the complete form of vowel harmony.