Abstract
On the basis of genetic classification, Edoid (of the Bini people of Nigeria) is conceivedas an offshoot of Benue-Congo earlier than Yoruboid (of the Ife people of Nigeria).However, the reverse is the case when viewed from the sociolinguistic platforms ofpopulation, prestige and power. Thus, in 2004, the Edoid patriarch of Bini launcheda biography, wherein he narrated the Bini origin of the Ife monarchy. This sparked abarrage of unguarded responses from both sides of the controversy, largely centredon different interpretations to oral tradition. By exploring language as custodian ofprehistory, this paper makes a linguistic contribution to the continuing debate aboutwhich predates the other between Ife (Yoruboid) and Bini (Edoid) of southwesternNigeria. It pieces together evidence of cognate lexical simplification, patterns ofcognate counting systems, sound inventory, and decadence of vowel harmony, whichsupport the chronological pre-eminence of Edoid over Yoruboid; thus, calling forarchaeological, anthropological and geographical inspection.
Highlights
There are two main concerns of comparative historical linguistics, namely the determination of genetic linguistic relatedness and the illumination of prehistories, otherwise known as linguistic palaeontology
At the right side of each item in the data, we have indicated the language group, either Yoruboid (Yod) or Edoid (Edd), to which the etymon is ascribed
This strongly indicates that Edoid languages chronologically predate Yoruboid by being closer in form to Proto-Benue-Congo
Summary
There are two main concerns of comparative historical linguistics, namely the determination of genetic linguistic relatedness and the illumination of prehistories, otherwise known as linguistic palaeontology The first of these has been robustly explored, to the extent that there are gross phylogenetic trees to which most natural languages have been parsed (Greenberg, 1963; Guthrie, 1971; Blust, 1995). Scant attempts have been made (especially in recent time) to reconstruct specific historical events through linguistic inferences. In the case of Africa, some such attempts include the routing of the migration of Niger-Congo populations to their current location in West Africa (Heine, 1979; Horton, 1982 and Elugbe, 1992); Williamson’s (1988) inferences on the trajectory of the Ijaw in eastern Nigeria; and Lewis’ (2015) identification of settlement and migratory patterns of populations in North Edo, western Nigeria. There is the contest of ethnocultural and political
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