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1
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2
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3
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4
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- Nigeria has a single language
isolate, the Jalaa or Cen Tuum language spoken among the Cham in the
Gombe area.
- Analysis so far suggests that it is unrelated to any other language in
the world and thus is probably a survival from the hunting-gathering
period when West Africa would have been occupied by small foraging bands
speaking a diverse range of now disappeared languages
- Evidence from Mali (Onjougou), Birimi (Ghana) and Shum Laka (Cameroun)
puts the settlement of West Africa by modern humans at ca. 40,000 BP
- Other language isolates are Laal
(Chad) and Bangi Me (Mali)
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5
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- Nigeria is one of the regions of Africa where three of its four language
phyla overlap and interact
- These are;
- Nilo-Saharan (Songhay, Saharan)
- Afroasiatic (Chadic, Semitic, Berber)
- Niger-Congo (Mande, Gur, Atlantic, Volta-Niger, Ijoid, Benue-Congo,
Adamawa, Ubangian)
- The Benue-Congo languages (which include Bantu) are the richest and most
numerous family, including Plateau, East and West Kainji, Cross River,
Dakoid, Mambiloid and other Bantoid, as well as Bantu proper (Jarawan
and Ekoid)
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6
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7
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- How many are there?
- Ca. 40 at last count with perhaps
2/3 to be discovered excluding Kainji and Jukunoid
- How many speakers are there?
- Excluding Jukunoid and East
Kainji, ca. 1 million. This is largely made up of groups such as Berom
and Eggon. Most groups are small (2-10,000). More claim ethnic
affiliation in towns but have poor command of the languages
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8
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- What is their status?
- Almost all Plateau languages are
threatened, except perhaps Berom and Tarok, and a few are moribund, such
as Sambe and Yangkam. The main source of threat is the spread of Hausa
and further south, English.
- What classification should be adopted?
- Evidence for a Plateau grouping
is present but has never been published
- Relationship with Kainji and
Jukunoid still undetermined Membership of Eloyi (previously ascribed to
Idomoid) seems likely
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9
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10
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11
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12
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13
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14
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15
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- Subgrouping at present is nearly all lexical and morphological. I have
yet to find any convincing phonological innovations defining groups.
Syntax is still poorly known. Language contact is extensive and regular
correspondences (as opposed to like/like correspondences) are hard to
find
- It is also the case that the affix systems of Plateau and Kainji have
eroded and been rebuilt many times; hence the difficulties of finding
regular correspondences with for example Bantu noun classes. Verbs and
their extensions can be borrowed as a package, hence spurious
similarities between Izere and Berom.
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16
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- The East Kainji languages were originally identified by Greenberg in
1955 as Plateau 1b. This was ignored by Westermann and Bryan and
Rowlands seems to have rediscovered this in 1962, using the wordlists of
Meek (1931)
- The idea that Kainji languages were a branch co-ordinate with Plateau
rather than simply a branch seems to have surfaced in the Benue-Congo
Working Group as did the informal use of the name Kainji, following the
creation of the Lake in 1974. Hoffman’s listing in the Index of Nigerian
Languages (1976) calls them ‘Western Plateau’. But Kainji seems to have
only been formally recognised in print by Gerhardt (1989).
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17
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- Published evidence for the unity of East Kainji as a group and for its
subclassification is non-existent. Scattered wordlists, some very short,
are found in the BCCW and in the publications of Shimizu. Since the
field trips conducted by Shimizu in the 1970s there have been virtually
no new materials published on East Kainji languages.
- John Nengel, made a number of visits to some of these communities in the
1980s to collect historical data but studies of East Kainji languages
have largely languished. As a consequence, we began to undertake a
survey of East Kainji communities, especially in the Jos area, and
focusing on languages reported by Shimizu as severely threatened.
- So far data has been collected on the Boze [=Buji], Loro, Panawa, Sheni,
Tunzu, Ziriya and Zora [=Cokobo] languages. A dictionary project is
underway for Boze
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18
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19
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20
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- How many speakers are there?
- No reliable or even unreliable figures available but most groups are
very small and language competence declining. Perhaps 100,000 maximum.
- What is their status?
- Almost all East Kainji languages
are threatened, except perhaps Amo and Chawai and many reported to exist
may well be extinct. The main source of threat is the spread of Hausa.
The isolated lects among the Hausa such as Kuda-Chamo are virtually
gone. The main source of endangerment is the spread of Hausa and the
small size of communities. There is some energy now to protect larger
languages like Boze, Tunzu and Amo
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21
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22
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23
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24
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25
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26
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27
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28
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- The West Kainji languages constitute one of the most widespread and
typologically diverse groups of Benue-Congo. Some exist for there is
still no lexical data.
- They include the Lake languages (Laru, Lopa and Reshe), the Kambari
languages, the Lela languages and the Basa chain
- The following trees represent an attempt to order the main subgroups of
West Kainji
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29
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30
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31
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32
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33
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34
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35
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36
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- The Jarawan Bantu languages form a closely related cluster, stretching
from Northern Cameroun, into Adamawa and across into Plateau and Bauchi
- They are very closely related to Bantu, indeed to the A60 languages and
they have only not been treated as Bantu because their nominal prefixes
are now ‘frozen’ possibly due to contact with Chadic.
- However, on lexical grounds they should be treated as Bantu proper.
Their exclusion is typological rather than genetic
- But of course this does not explain the motivation for their
extraordinary migrations..
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37
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38
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- The earliest occupation of what is now North-Central Nigeria must have
been that of Pleistocene foragers, and perhaps the only trace of these
is the Jalaa
- Nilo-Saharan speakers, probably fishing people, to judge by their
harpoon points, expanded across the region ca. 10-8000 years ago
- This was followed by the Gur-Adamawa speakers, stretching from Burkina
Faso to Chad, perhaps 6-8000 years ago
- It is likely the East Benue-Congo speakers then spread northwards,
disrupting the Gur-Adamawa chain
- Probably then the Nupoid
languages expanded northwards and broke apart the two branches of Kainji
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39
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40
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41
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42
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43
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44
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- This would have been followed by the expansion first of West Chadic
(2-3000 years ago) and then the secondary expansion of Hausa (? 1000
years ago) further breaking up the Kainji and Plateau populations and
pressing Adamawa languages
southwards
- At the same time there would have been a secondary expansion of Kanuri
cluster languages from north of Lake Chad
- Shuwa Arabs are likely to begin incursions into NE Nigeria in the 13th
century
- And sometime around this period the Jarawan Bantu migrations begin
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45
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- To the Jos Linguistic Circle for inviting me to speak
- To the Kay Williamson Educational Foundation for sponsoring my travel
and expenses
- To all the many colleagues and villagers in Nigeria and elsewhere who
have helped me over the years
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Notes
