[citation needed] Dẹgẹma is the only Niger-Congo language to match the vowel inventory reconstructed for Proto-Ijoid.
[5] Dẹgẹma has 24 consonants (including labialized velar-glottal sounds):[6] Oral tradition asserts that the Degema people (originally part of the Engenni people) migrated from Benin (in what is now the Edo State of Nigeria) to Ewu in present-day Engenni, in the Ahoada Local Government Area of Rivers State.
According to Mark Roman (a native of Engenni and a staff member at the University of Port Harcourt), the people of present-day Degema settled at Ewu (near Akinima) when they left Benin with other groups who settled at Okilogua in Engenni (not in Akinima, as claimed).
The Udekaama group went to the uninhabited Degema Island around the 15th century CE and settled at Ipokuma ("headland" or "cape" in Dẹgẹma), now known as Doctor’s Farm.
Some of these have been fully integrated into the Kalabari Kingdom; others (Dekema [sic], Bukuma) still maintain their originality and have relatively tenuous culture-linguistic and conjugal relationship with Kalabari people.At Ipokuma Ugu and Ekeze led Usokun-Degema and Degema Town, respectively, north to their present sites for fishing, hunting and farming.
Udekaama is still found in official documents, mainly due to the assertion of ethnic identity by the Degema people (who are surrounded by Kalabari-speaking communities).