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2	East Kainji languages I The East Kainji languages are a poorly studied group of some 26 languages spoken north and west of the Jos Plateau in Central Nigeria. A wordlist of Takaya (Taura) is included in Gowers (1907) but the first extensive listing is in Meek (1925:137), where the classification (contributed by N.W. Thomas) lists them under ‘Nigerian Semi-Bantu’ along with Plateau and Jukunoid. Meek (1931, II: 125-218) collected wordlists of Piti, Atsam, Kurama, Janji, Gbiri and Niragu which have remained the basis for many later analyses. Westermann and Bryan (1952:106-108) list these languages (Atsam, Kurama, Janji, Piti, Jere) as ‘isolated language groups’ but classify them together with other ‘class languages’, although noting that Chawai has ‘no noun classes’.
3	East Kainji languages II Greenberg (1955) originally identified the group as Plateau 1b, where Plateau 1a was the now geographically separate West Kainji, which includes such languages as cLela and Kambari. Rowlands (1962) seems to have rediscovered this without reference to Greenberg, arguing that East Kainji should be treated as distinct from Plateau. The idea that Kainji languages were co-ordinate with Plateau rather than simply to be included within it seems to have surfaced in the Benue-Congo Working Group in the 1970s. The informal use of the name Kainji, followed the creation of Lake Kainji in 1974. Hofmann’s (1976) listing in the Index of Nigerian Languages still calls them ‘Western Plateau’ and the term ‘Kainji’ seems to have only been formally recognised in print by Gerhardt (1989).
4	East Kainji languages III Published evidence for the unity of East Kainji as a group and for its subclassification is non-existent, as is any coherent account of its relation to West Kainji. Scattered wordlists, some very short, were published in the Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist (BCCW) (Williamson & Shimizu 1968; Williamson 1972) and in Shimizu (1968, 1979, 1982). Many languages, especially of the Kauru group, appear to have no material available at all. Di Luzio (1972) is the only published grammar sketch of an East Kainji language, tiMap, while Anderson (1981) presented a more complete account of the noun classes of the same language.
5	East Kainji languages IV No reliable, or even unreliable, figures available for the number of speakers of East Kainji languages today, but most groups are very small and language competence is declining. It is unlikely that there are more than 100,000 speakers of all East Kainji languages. As a consequence, from 2003, a survey of East Kainji communities has been undertaken especially in the Jos area, 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 and the programme will try and visit all the remainder in the coming years.
6	East Kainji languages V A. Southern Piti Atsam B. Jos group a. Northern i. Ningi cluster Kudu-Camo (almost extinct) Gamo-Ningi (Butu-Ningi†) ii. Lame cluster Gyem (almost extinct) Shau (almost extinct) iii. Lere cluster Si (almost extinct) Gana (almost extinct) Takaya (almost extinct)
7	East Kainji languages VI Almost all East Kainji languages are threatened, except perhaps Amo and Chawai, and many reported to exist may well now be extinct. The main source of endangerment is the spread of Hausa and the small size of their communities. East Kainji languages abut the Hausa-speaking area to the north and their speakers tend to be fluent in Hausa. Many languages are threatened by the declining competence of the younger generation. Although there is now some energy to protect larger languages like Boze, Tunzu and Amo, isolated lects encapsulated among the Hausa such as Kuda-Chamo are virtually gone. Ziriya is completely dead, Sheni has just six speakers and Zora is clearly in decline. It is unlikely the trend will be easily reversed for moribund languages, but larger speech communities such as the Boze, where there is an articulate older generation with an interest in language development, are a more realistic proposition.
8	East Kainji languages VII All East Kainji languages so far studied have a relatively simple phonology and broadly resemble one another. The system of εBoze is given below as an example. εBoze has eight phonemic vowels; Front Central Back Close i u Close-Mid e ə o Open-Mid ε ɔ Open a All vowels have contrastive length and there are no nasalised vowels.
9	East Kainji languages VIII Tones ɛBoze has four level tones as well as rising and falling tones. Some of the glide tones arise from long vowels and diphthongs, but others occur on single vowels. Level tones are as follows; SUPERHIGH double acute accent above the syllable ̋ HIGH acute accent above the syllable ´ MID unmarked LOW grave accent over the syllable ` The superhigh tones arise from a tone rule which requires all the tones in singular noun forms to be raised one level in the plural.
10	εBoze verb morphology I εBoze verbs have pluralising extensions These typically refer to; Plural subjects Plural objects Iteratives Ca. 50% of εBoze verbs appear to have these extensions, although the existence of an extension appears to be unpredictable. They are not well-known and it often takes time to recall them during elicitation
11	εBoze verb morphology II Broadly speaking, in transitive verbs the plural extension refers to multiple objects and with intransitives to plural subjects The use of iteratives is not predictable Singular/plural stems are always cognate, there are no suppletive plurals presently recorded, although these occur in Plateau languages
12	εBoze verb morphology III
13	εBoze verb morphology IV
14	εBoze verb morphology V Of the ca. 150 or so sg./pl. pairings so far recorded, almost no two are exactly similar although they are clearly related From this I assume a general template for plural verbs exists in the language, but that it has been applied intermittently and inconsistently to individual lexical items leading to the present pattern. This is also the case for many neighbouring Plateau languages.
15	εBoze verb morphology VI All of these appear to derive from an original affix, either ZYV- or -SV where ZY is a palatal affricate and S is an unspecified fricative and the V is either –a/ə or copies the stem. The suffix -SV can either follow the stem, or replace the final –CV syllable.
16	εBoze verb morphology VI There is considerable evidence that the earlier form of the affix was something like dʒV- or zV-which still persists in certain verbs but is also retained as an unproductive morpheme. For example;
17	εBoze verb morphology VII Words such as
18	εBoze verb morphology VIII It is hard to determine the reasons for choice of s- or z- in this position. However; 1. Where the stem ends in a consonant or nasal, -s is chosen. Thus rumsa, wursi 2. Where C2 is –s-, the affix will have z- 3. Where the C2 is –r-, the affix will have S- 4. Where the stem is CVV, the affix will have S- 5. Where C2 is –j-, the affix will have j-
19	εBoze verb morphology IX At a guess; 1. The primary affix was -dʒV where –V was a back vowel which did not show harmony with the stem vowel 2. This was followed with -dʒV with an underspecified vowel, typically centralised, accounting for the dʒa- forms 3. Subsequently, affrication was lost, yielding both -ZV and –SV affixes
20	εBoze verb morphology X Finally, a stem harmonisation rule was introduced, so that the underspecified vowel of the affix agreed with the stem vowel; hence forms such as
21	Conclusions The rule appears to be that there are many rules, most of low frequency. All the affixes appear to be underlyingly the same, but have evolved in phonological content over time, in consort with constant affix renewal. As a consequence almost every verb is in a different stage, of renewal, making the outlining of any simply rules impossible
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