This language cluster belongs to the Cross River branch of Benue-Congo and is spoken in the Cross River Basin of Nigeria.
UBS (1982) notes 1.5 million speakers overall; Voegelin and Voegelin (1977), citing Westermann and Bryan (1952), state there are more than one million. Cook (personal communication) gives a figure of 500,000 first language speakers of Efik alone, with the number rising to 2.5 million when second-language speakers are included. Grimes (1996) lists 360,000 first language and two million second language speakers of Efik, one million speakers of Anaang, and 3,186,000 speakers of Ibibio.
Of the three, Efik serves as the first school language is used in all levels of education (Grimes 1996) and is considered as the standard as well. Most Ibibio and Anaang speakers use Efik as a second language; it often serves as a lingua franca. Ibibio is the trade language of Akwa Ibom State (Grimes 1996) and is gaining status as more materials are prepared in it. Radio and television in Nigeria broadcasts in Efik.
Efik, as the first written language of the three, has a standard orthography. Ibibio has also recently developed a standard orthography.
Priority should be given to materials for Efik based on the Calabar dialect.
Copyright ©2006 African Studies Center. For questions or comments about this site, please contact the Webmaster.