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ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to document properly the linguistics aspect of Ẹdo burial rites with respect to the issue of language use. It was carried out to among other things, present the socio-cultural world-view of the people and the interactional strategies adopted when dealing with the funeral rites of the departed. The work is designed to throw more light on the linguistic structure of burials in the Ẹdo society (from the traditional sense) and act as a means to document the processes involved in the funeral rites with respect to the language used from the beginning to the end of the funerals. Data for the study were obtained through the methods of participant’s observation and interviews of some elderly personalities in the Ẹdo society conversant the traditional Ẹdo burial ceremonies and protocols. The collected data which consisted principally of words, items used during funerals, participants in the funerals, songs and prayers were analyzed descriptively with emphasis on the significance of the respective items in the funeral process. It was observed from the study that Ẹdo society among other things possesses a rich repertoire of linguistic resources in the course of carrying out funeral rites and these need to be documented for posterity sake due to the threat of extinction posed to them by Christianity and western Education.
