Uneme Iron Technology

Language	Uneme
Depositor	Lateef Adeleke
Affiliation	University of Rochester
Location	Nigeria
Collection ID	0831
Grant ID	IGS1048
Funding Body	ELDP
Collection Status	Collection online
Landing Page Handle	http://hdl.handle.net/2196/a13db76d-a5d4-4591-9ceb-fec873a140a3

Summary of the collection

This collection documents the culture, heritage knowledge, and language of the Únẹ̀mẹ̀ people of Edo state, Nigeria. As a culture historically distinguished by their mastery of iron technology and resilient migration pattern, this project documents Únẹ̀mẹ̀ through the lens of their heritage knowledge of iron technology, identity preservation, and adaptation to the evolution of technology and economic practices. This multimodal project includes naturalistic and procedural texts, oral histories, traditional blacksmithing vocabulary, and linguistic data, across Únẹ̀mẹ̀ communities in Edo state, Nigeria. Some of the recordings are transcribed and translated into English. This collection is a work in progress and will be updated and expanded overtime.

Group represented

This collection is about the identically known blacksmiths of the Northern part of Edo State, Nigeria — the Únẹ̀mẹ̀. They refer to themselves, their language, and their communities as Únẹ̀mẹ̀, and this is how members of other groups also refer to them. The Únẹ̀mẹ̀ were renowned for their mastery of ironworking from as early as pre-1370 A.D. (Harunah 2003). Their indigenous iron technology brought them economic relevance among other groups in the region. They reigned as a major supplier in Nigeria’s trade networks until European colonialism introduced industrial iron, which led to the decline of patronage in their technology. According to Harunah (2003), the Únẹ̀mẹ̀ traced their origin to the NOK cultural zone, but they migrated in two major waves from Benin in c.1370 A.D. They are dispersed among other language groups in the northern part of Edo State, Nigeria. More specifically, they occupy various communities in Akoko-Edo, Etsako, Okene, Agbor, Asaba, and Awka. They founded several communities, adapted to various host cultures, and retained some of their culture despite the social pressure from other groups around them.

Language information

Únẹ̀mẹ̀ [ISO une] is an understudied Edoid language spoken by the identically named blacksmiths of the Afenmai hill in the northern part of Edo state, Nigeria. It is classified under the Benue-Congo family as the Afenmai-Bendel branch of the North Central Edoid (NCE) sub-group (Elugbe, 1989; Lewis, 2013). It is identified as an endangered and threatened language by Ethnologue and Glottolog, respectively. Many factors, including population displacement, despised status, and socio-political and linguistic hegemony, threaten their linguistic and cultural identity.

Únẹ̀mẹ̀ is in contact with other languages such as English, Nigeria Pidgin English (NPE), Yoruba, Okpamehri, Etsako [ets], Ebira [igb], which compete with Únẹ̀mẹ̀ in this area – English dominates as the language of instruction in schools; NPE, and Yoruba function as the lingua franca between the Únẹ̀mẹ̀ and their respective non-Únẹ̀mẹ̀ neighbors in everyday activities, relegating Únẹ̀mẹ̀ to function in informal domains: It is used alongside English, NPE, and Yoruba, in Únẹ̀mẹ̀ homes situated at Akoko-Edo such as in Únẹ̀mẹ̀-Ekpedo, alongside English, NPE, and Etsako at their homes located at Etsako north such as Únẹ̀mẹ̀-Udochi. Yuka & Bayodele (2017) observe that “Younger speakers have generally replaced Únẹ̀mẹ̀ with English as the language of choice in all communicative contexts except with their parents; lexical attrition and language shift from Únẹ̀mẹ̀ to English is evident among the youths of 15- 40 years”.

Special characteristics

As far as we know, this is the first digital documentation of the Nigeria’s foremost blacksmiths (The Únẹ̀mẹ̀s), their skills, culture, traditions, and language.

As a language of a group with a specialized skill, it is expected that Únẹ̀mẹ̀ will retain some cultural lexicons, such as the specialized words related to their heritage knowledge of ironworking. It will therefore increase our understanding of the connection between language and heritage occupation.

The documentation will also increase our understanding of how artistic heritage or ancestral occupation is tied to social status in African societies. It is interesting to see that blacksmithing is associated with mystical or spiritual power in the African context, but despite this powerful identity and their immense contributions to society, they are still despised and marginalized.

In a broader sense, this documentation will increase our knowledge of how indigenous groups with heritage knowledge, like the Únẹ̀mẹ̀s, adapt to the pressure from the evolution of technology and social and economic practices. It will also be applicable to the language typologists, sociolinguists, and anthropologists who are interested in studying Edoid prehistory, especially in terms of linguistic internal evidence, ancient occupations, migration, identity, and socio-relations, as it will provide insights into how material culture, migration, identity, and language evolve together.

Collection contents

In its current version, this collection contains 92 hrs 45 min of videos, including 46 hrs 12 min naturalistic data, 13 hrs 22 In its current version, this collection contains 92 hrs 45 min of videos, including 46 hrs 12 min naturalistic data, 13 hrs 22 min ceremonies, festival and games, 1 hr 19 min songs, 20 hrs 56 min elicited data, 7h 117m parallel recordings, and 3 hrs 39 min consent recordings. It also contains 44 hrs 47 min audio only recordings: 12h 31m BOLD, 40min naturalistic data, and 31h 36m parallel and/or extracted recordings. For annotations, it currently contains 10 hrs 50 min transcribed, 8 hrs 1 min translated into English, and 2 hrs glossed. Others include 230 photographs, and an Únẹ̀mẹ̀-English bilingual dictionary with 2,545 lexical entries.

Collection history

This collection represents an ongoing, multi-year documentation project on Únẹ̀mẹ̀ language and cultural heritage. The goal is to produce a systematically curated multi-dialect, multi-domain collection for academic and community use.

The first round of fieldwork was conducted between June and August 2025 in Ekpedo, (Edo state, Nigeria.) by Lateef Adeleke, David Ekundayo, Kayode Solomon and Adebimpe Adeleke. During this phase, audio-visual recordings across multiple genres, including narratives, interviews, procedural discourse, culturally motivated practices (e.g, ironworking, festivals, wedding ceremony), and linguistic data elicitation.

Post-fieldwork data processing continues between September-December 2025, when the team continued working on segmentation, transcription, translation, and data management. The first round of materials was deposited with ELAR for archiving in December 2025.

The second phase of fieldwork was between January and March 2026. We deposited the second round of data for archiving with ELAR in July 2026. The third round of the fieldwork is ongoing…

References

Elugbe, B. (1989). Comparative Edoid Phonology and Lexicon. Delta Series, No.6, Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press.

Harunah, H. B. (2003). A cultural history of the Uneme from the earliest times to 1962. The Book Company Limited.

Picton, J. (1991) ” On Artifacts and Identity at the Niger-Benue Confluence .” African Arts, Vol. 24, No. 3, Special Issue: Memorial to Arnold Rubin, Part II, pp. 34-49+93-94. Published by UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Centre.

Yuka, L., & Bayodele, D.(2017). Lexical Attrition and Language Shift: The Case of Uneme. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 43(2), 119-139.

Acknowledgement and citation

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) funds this project through an Individual Graduate Scholarship (IGS1048) awarded to the University of Rochester on behalf of Lateef Adeleke for the period of July 2025-August 2028. Users of this collection should acknowledge Lateef Adeleke as the principal investigator and ELDP as the funder. The contributors should be acknowledged by their names as indicated in the metadata for each session.

To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:

Lateef, Adeleke. 2025. Uneme Iron Technology. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/029c38b3-87b7-42c0-9646-985a5c69f970. Accessed on [insert date here].