Edisana Ŋwed Abasi Eki — Eki Scripture Portions (Nigeria)
Overview
Edisana Ŋwed Abasi Eki ("The Holy Word of God in Eki") is the Gospel of Luke in the Eki language of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, published by Beyond Translation under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license and available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4339). This is among the first written scripture in Eki, produced through Beyond Translation's Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) model. The title draws on the shared liturgical vocabulary of the Lower Cross River region: Ŋwed Abasi ("Word of God") is the Ibibio-Efik inherited term for scripture, used across the Ibibio-Efik language cluster in southeastern Nigeria, inherited from the early Efik Christian tradition of the 19th century.
Language and People
Eki (ISO 639-3: eki) is a Niger-Congo language: Niger-Congo → Atlantic-Congo → Volta-Congo → Benue-Congo → Cross River → Lower Cross River → Ibibio-Efik cluster. Eki is a small language within the broader Ibibio-related complex of Akwa Ibom State, related to Ibibio (ibb), Efik (efi), Eket (eke), Oron/Ebughu (ebg), and neighboring varieties. The shared liturgical vocabulary (Ŋwed Abasi, Edisana "Holy/Sacred") reflects the deep influence of Efik Christian tradition on the entire Ibibio-Efik cluster since the 19th-century establishment of the Presbyterian Church at Calabar.
The Eki community inhabits Akwa Ibom State, southeastern Nigeria, in the densely populated Cross River coastal zone.
Estimated speakers: a small community within the broader Ibibio-Efik zone; precise first-language speaker counts for Eki specifically are limited in published census data.
Cultural Context
Akwa Ibom State was created in 1987 from the former Cross River State and is home to numerous closely related languages and dialects alongside the dominant Ibibio. The Beyond Translation CCBT model engages local church communities directly in the translation process, resulting in scripture that carries strong community ownership. Like the closely related Oron/Ebughu (ebg), Nkari (nkz), Etebi (etb), and Idere (ide) languages, Eki receives its first scripture through this community-driven model.
Publishing and Organizations
Published by Beyond Translation (beyondtranslation.org, Arlington, Texas) under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.