INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
CLASSIFICATION, AREA, DIALECTS, NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
The Bini or Edo (Ɛdo [ ˩ ˥ ] ) language, together with the Ishan (Esã [ ˥ ˩ ]) dialect, which is not dealt with in this dictionary, forms the central group of the cluster of languages generally known under the same name and belonging to the Kwa group of Western Sudan languages. In the north of Bini-Ishan, the Kukuruku languages of the same family are spoken; in the south, the Sobo and Isoko languages, also belonging to the same group.
The area of the Bini or Edo language (which will in what follows always be understood as excluding Ishan) is almost identical with the Benin Division of the Benin Province in Southern Nigeria. Actually, not the whole of that division is inhabited by Bini people; some parts near the southern boundary (e.g. Jesse) having a Sobo, and some near the eastern boundary (Igbãkɛ), an Ika-Ibo population. Besides these, there are interspersed Sobo, Jekri and Ijaw settlements, and a number of members of other tribes, such as Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa in Benin City, near the boundaries and at trading settlements. Whether there are Bini-speaking settlements worth mentioning outside the Division is not certain. There seem to be many Bini people at Akure (Ondo Province), and possibly there are Bini-speaking villages in the south of Ondo Province (Okitipupa Division).
The language is on the whole homogeneous, a fact which is due to the strong political centralisation of the people round the Ɔba at Benin City. The inhabitants of the village of Ɔza near the eastern boundary of the Division, not far from Igbãkɛ, speak a different dialect which is easily understood by other Bini speakers and is considered as Bini. These people are said to have come from Ɔzara1 on the other side of the present boundary (i.e. in the Agbor Division) within recent times, and to have adopted the Bini language. At Ehɔ on the Bini-Ishan boundary, and in the regions behind the Ossiomo (called Iyek-orhiɔʋ̃ɔ), the speech is said to have dialectal peculiarities.
The number of Bini speakers may amount to about 90-100,000, the population of the Division being 110,738 according to the Census of 1931, including the non-Bini population.
1 The Ɔzara people have a language of their own which the author has not been able to study. It is perhaps not identical with the above-mentioned Ika-Ibo.
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