with NWY and shares many ethnographical features with SEY. Its vowel system is the most traditional of the three dialect groups, retaining nine oral-vowel contrasts, six or seven nasal vowels, and an extensive vowel harmony system. Peculiar to Central and Eastern (NEY, SEY) Yoruba also is the ability to begin words with the vowel [?:], which in Western Yoruba has been changed to [I:].

Central Yoruba dialects cover the following varieties, peoples, and places: Igbomina, Ijesha,