Rigwe language

Rigwe
Nkarigwe
Native toNigeria
RegionPlateau State, Kaduna State
Native speakers
(40,000 cited 1985)
Language codes
ISO 639-3iri
Glottologirig1241
Rigwe
PeopleNneirigwe
LanguageNkarigwe
ɾȉgʷȅ
Personƴîɾìgʷȅ
Peopleyíɾìgʷȅ
Languageɾȉgʷȅ

The Rigwe language, Nkarigwe, is a Plateau language of Nigeria spoken by the Irigwe people mainly found in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Rigwe has highly complex phonology. The presence of the lateral fricative /ɬ/ in Rigwe, unusual among Plateau languages, suggests that there used to be West Chadic languages in the area with this phoneme.