Efik

Efik, a negro people of the Slave Coast, dominant in the Oyono (Old Calabar) river basin, where they form a separate group, with three branches - Eflks proper, Qua on the W. side of the Old Calabar estuary, and Andoni E. of Bonny. They speak a radically distinct negro language, which, however, has been subject to Bantu influences, so that the Efik serves as a connecting link between the true Negro tongue of W. Soudan and the Bantu family on their eastern frontier. At this point the linguistic parting-line is the Rio del Rey, which flows N. and W. of the Cameron Mountains, and reaches the coast at the head of the Bight of Benin.