The Kuteb people mostly live in the southern part of Taraba state in Nigeria, with a thousand-or-so speakers across the border in Cameroon.
In Nigeria, it is spoken mostly in Takum and Ussa LGAs, and Yangtu SDA Taraba State.
This phoneme only occurs in closed syllables, some noun prefixes, and in verbal reduplication where there is neutralization of u and i.
According to Roger Blench, there are five different tones in Kuteb, these are: low (unmarked), mid (¯), high (´), falling (ˆ), and rising (ˇ).
If these changes are taken to be consonantal phonemic clusters, the syllabic boundaries are as follows:[7] The letter ⟨w⟩ in the Kuteb language retains its status as a voiced labio-velar approximant, as in uwé ‘face’ or in wōm ‘dry’ - though, when ⟨w⟩ is included in clusters with a palatal consonant (/c, j, sh, nj/) /w/, due to sandhi changes, becomes a voiced or voiceless labiodental release.