qThe 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.
qMeek (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’.