Previously the name used by British colonial administration was Kukuruku, supposedly after a battle cry "ku-ku-ruku",[2] now considered derogatory.
[1] Afenmai is unusual in reportedly having a voiceless tapped fricative as the "tense" equivalent of the "lax" voiced tap /ɾ/ (compare [aɾ̞̊u] 'hat' and [aɾu] 'louse'[3]), though is other descriptions it is described simply as a fricative and analyzed as the "lax" equivalent of the "tense" voiceless stop /t/.
Afenmai has a complex system of morphotonemic alterations based on two phonemic tones, high and low.
At the surface level there are five distinctive tones: high, low, falling, rising and mid.
The other alveolar consonants do not have this variation, unless the triggering environment is provided within a prosodic word: /odzi/ 'crab' ([odzi] in citation form) > /odzi oɣie/ 'the king's crab' ([odʒoɣje]).