Iceve-Maci language

Ceve
Oliti
Iceve
Native to	Cameroon, Nigeria
Native speakers	(12,000 cited 1990)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Tivoid Central (A) Ceve
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bec
Glottolog	icev1238

Ceve[2]
People	Baceve
Language	Iceve

Ceve (Iceve), or Iceve-Maci, is a Tivoid language of the Cameroons. The divergent dialects are Ceve proper (Becheve), and Maci (Matchi, Oliti).

Writing system

Iceve-Maci Alphabet^[3]

a

b

c

d

e

ɛ

f

g

gb

gh

h

i

k

kp

l

m

n

ŋ

o

ɔ

p

s

t

u

ʉ

v

w

y

z

Multigraphs

Digraphs	mb	nd	ng	ny	nz	ŋw	ŋm
IPA	^mb	^nd	^ŋg	^nj	^ndz	^ŋw	ŋm
Trigraph	mgb
IPA	^ŋmgb

^[4]

Tone indication

Notation	á	à or a	â	ă	àâ
Tone description	High	Low	Falling	Rising	Falling-rising

^[4]

Phonology

^[4]

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar/Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ	ŋm
Plosive	p b ^mb	t d ⁿd		k g ^ŋg	kp gb ^ŋmgb
Affricate		t͡s ~ t͡ʃ d͡z ~ d͡ʒ ⁿd͡z
Fricative	f v	s ~ ʃ				h
Approximant		l	j ^ɲj		w ⁿw

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Near-close			ʊ
Close-mid	e		o
Open/Open-mid	a		ɔ

Tones

There are 5 tones: high, low, falling, rising and rising-falling.

References

1. Ceve at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
3. "Va, Sayegh Iceve!". SIL International. 15 September 2022.
4. "Iceve-Maci language and alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2024-03-17.