Ijo represents a "language cluster" within Kwa and is spoken in Bendel and Rivers states, Nigeria. More recent treatments (Bennett and Sterk 1977) suggest that the Ijoid languages are not part of the Benue-Congo group but are more distantly related.
UBS (1982) notes one million speakers of Ijo, while Grimes (1996) cites an estimate of 1,770,000 speakers for all dialects. Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) list 160,000. Herault lists 900,000.
Ijo is a regional language.
Several of the dialect clusters have standardized orthographies introduced by Williamson; some do not.
At least four sets of learning materials would be needed to present adequately the language types included under the heading of Ijo.
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