Central Ibibio is the major dialect cluster of the Cross River branch of Benue–Congo. Efik proper has national status in Nigeria and was erroneously made the literary standard of the Ibibio language, though Ibibio proper has more native speakers.

Varieties

Efik-Ibibio is a dialect cluster spoken by about 15 million people of Akwa Ibom State and about 5 million people of Cross River States of Nigeria, making it the fifth largest language cluster in Nigeria after Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and Fulani.

The major Efik-Ibibio languages are:

• Anaang (5.5 million speakers, 2018 estimate)
• Ibibio (15 million speakers, including L2 speakers, 2018 estimate)
• Efik (3 million speakers, 2018 estimate. Efik also has about 2 million second-language speakers.)

Minor varieties, according to Williamson and Blench,^[a] are:

• Ekit (200,000 speakers), with dialect Etebi
• Efai (7,000 speakers)
• Ibuoro (20,000 speakers), with dialects Ibuoro proper, Ito, Itu Mbon Uzo and Nkari
• Eki (5,000 speakers)
• Idere (5,000 speakers)
• Ukwa (100 speakers)

These arguably constitute a single language, though Ethnologue considers them to be separate.