Eleme is member of the Cross River group of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. It is spoken by about 40,000 people in Eleme Local Government Area in the centre of Rivers State in the southeast of Nigeria. In particular, it is spoken in the communities of Agbonchia, Akpajo, Alesa, Aleto, Alode, Ogale, Ebubu, Ekporo, Eteo and Onne.
There are two dialects of Eleme: Nchia and Odido, which are mutually intelligible. Eleme is considered endangered as most Eleme people are shifting to English or Nigerian Pidgin. Efforts are being made to encourage more people to use Eleme, including books, films and videos.
Eleme was first written in the 1930s by choir leaders and primary school teachers. A numbers of ways to write the language with the Latin alphabet have been developed. Few Eleme speakers are literate in their language perhaps due to the lack of a standard orthography.
Download an alphabet chart for Eleme (Excel)
Details of the Eleme alphabet provided by Wolfram Siegel (PDF)
Source: https://www.academia.edu/14525467/The_Eleme_Orthography
Information about Eleme | Numbers
Information about Eleme
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleme_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleme_people
https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/elem1253
http://www.language-archives.org/language/elm
https://www.academia.edu/14525467/The_Eleme_Orthography
elemetoay.blogspot.com/2025/05/eleme-monarch-laments-erosion-of-native.html
Akum, Alumu, Anaang, Berom, Cara, Eleme, Jju
Languages written with the Latin alphabet
Page created: 08.07.26. Last modified: 08.07.26
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