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Medefaidrin (Medefidrin), orObɛri Ɔkaimɛ, is a constructed language and script created as a Christiansacred language by anIbibio congregation in 1930s Nigeria. It has its roots inglossolalia ('speaking in tongues').

Speakers consider Medefaidrin to be a 'spirit language'. It was created by two leaders of the church, Michael Ukpong and Akpan Akpan Udofia. They state that theHoly Spirit revealed the words of the language to Ukpong, while Udofia wrote them down. At the timeIbibio was not a written language, and Udofia created a script to write Medefaidrin.

After finalizing the language in 1936, members of the church started a school in which children were instructed in Medefaidrin. This was not tolerated by the British colonial government, who closed the school that same year. Nonetheless, the language continued to be used for church activities, including liturgy and hymns, and for letters and written contracts between members. The language faded from use, but in 1986 Udofia began teaching it again in the church's Sunday school inIdidep. Old manuscripts in the script are in poor condition, and in the 21st century there has been some effort to preserve them.

Medefaidrin is a stress-accented rather than tonal language, though this may be changing under Ibibio influence. Unlike theIbibio language, there are severalconsonant clusters in Medefaidrin, many of which do not exist in English.

Medefaidrin script
Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ script
Script type	Alphabet
Period	1930s to present
Languages	Medefaidrin
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Medf(265), ​Medefaidrin (Oberi Okaime, Oberi Ɔkaimɛ)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Medefaidrin
Unicode range	U+16E40–U+16E9F

The script has upper- and lower-case letters like the English alphabet,^[1] but the letters were invented and there is no systematic relationship between glyph and sound. There are a number of arbitrary digraphs, whose pronunciation cannot be determined from their component letters, again as in English.

Medefaidrin script was added to theUnicode Standard in June 2018 with the release of version 11.0.

The Unicode block for Medefaidrin is U+16E40–U+16E9F and contains 91 characters:^[2]

Structurally, the language is largely arelexification of English, although thesemantics are closer to the native language of its users,Ibibio. The definite article isdei, and several prepositions alliterate or rhyme with their English equivalents:su "to",fra "from",nai "by",kin "in". Most words, however, resemble nothing in English or Ibibio, but appear to have been created without a specific underlying system. Themorphology is not highly developed, but a few elements have been taken from English, such as the plural in -s (z?).

Thevigesimal numbering system and calendar reflect Ibibio norms. The calendar year contains sixteen four-week months.^[a]

• Eskayan language and script of the Philippines
• Lingua Ignota and script of Germany

• Constructed languages
• Constructed languages introduced in the 1930s
• Christian liturgical languages
• Constructed scripts
• Languages of Nigeria
• Language and mysticism
• Dialects of English
• Ibibio-Efik languages
• Mixed languages

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles lacking in-text citations from February 2022
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• Language articles with unknown population not citing Ethnologue 18
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• Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codes