A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Koenoem [Kcs] Language of Plateau State, Nigeria
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Digital Resources Journal of Language Survey Report 2021-021 A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Koenoem [kcs] Language of Plateau State, Nigeria Ken Decker, Christina Riepe, Adedamola Aregbesola, Fittokka Gobak, John Sacson, Samuel Eju A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Koenoem [kcs] Language of Plateau State, Nigeria Ken Decker, Christina Riepe, Adedamola Aregbesola, Fittokka Gobak, John Sacson, Samuel Eju SIL International® 2021 Journal of Language Survey Report 2021-021 2021 SIL International® ISSN: 2766-9327 As a peer-reviewed journal for original research articles, SIL Electronic Survey Reports (ISSN: 1559-1417) has been well-known since 1999. The SIL journal title was changed to Journal of Language Survey Reports, starting with the first issue in 2021. Fair-Use Policy: Documents published in the Journal of Language Survey Reports series are intended for scholarly research and educational use. You may make copies of these publications for research or instructional purposes (under fair use guidelines) free of charge and without further permission. Republication or commercial use of Journal of Language Survey Reports or the documents contained therein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the copyright holder. Orphan Works Note: Data and materials collected by researchers in an era before documentation of permission was standardized may be included in this publication. SIL makes diligent efforts to identify and acknowledge sources and to obtain appropriate permissions wherever possible, acting in good faith and on the best information available at the time of publication. Series Editor Angela Kluge Managing Editor Eric Kindberg Copy Editor Eleanor J. McAlpine Compositor Bonnie Waswick Abstract This report describes a sociolinguistic survey conducted among the Koenoem [kcs]-speaking communities in Mikang LGA, Plateau State, in central Nigeria. Blench (2017:5) classifies Koenoem as an Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, West, A, A.3, Goemaic, Talic language. While it is difficult to estimate the population with any certainty, we believe that the population of Koenoem speakers is between 3,000 and 9,000. The goals of this research included gaining a better understanding of the role of Koenoem and other languages in the lives of the Koenoem people. Our data indicate that Koenoem oral language use is vigorous and there appears to be high vitality (EGIDS 6a). All generations use their language in virtually all domains. However, there are a few domains in which other languages are also used. The people expressed identificational reasons for wanting to develop their language and maintain its use. A wordlist comparison with the neighboring Piapung language revealed a high level of similarity, but the groups consider that they have different identities. The Koenoem frequently use other languages, with varying levels of proficiency, in a limited number of domains, and for limited purposes. Hausa is most often used for communication with non-Koenoem speakers. Hausa and English are used in schools and churches. Although the Koenoem are multilingual, this does not appear to have reduced proficiency in Koenoem for any generation. It is probable that there has been a balanced differentiation between which languages are used in which domains for some generations. This study of Koenoem is part of a larger initiative to provide sociolinguistic information to organizations, development agencies, and local communities who are working collaboratively towards meeting the language development needs of the ethnolinguistic groups of Nigeria. The goal is to have a more realistic understanding of language development needs on a national scale. Linguistic and sociolinguistic data were collected through group and individual interviews, participatory discussions, observations, and wordlist collection. Contents Languages Mentioned in This Report 1 Introduction 2 Purpose and research questions 3 Previous research 4 Research methods 4.1 Group interview 4.2 Select leader interviews 4.3 Observation 4.4 Analysis of qualitative data 4.5 Wordlist collection and analysis 5 Geographic, demographic, and social description 5.1 Language and people identification 5.2 Location, settlements, and administrative division 5.3 Population 5.4 Origin of the Koenoem 5.5 Other social descriptions 5.5.1 Occupations 5.5.2 Education 5.5.3 Religions 5.5.4 Intermarriage 6 Linguistic relationships 6.1 Classification 6.2 Phonology 6.3 Comparison with Piapung 6.3.1 Phonetic comparison 6.3.2 Lexical comparison 6.3.3 Phonological comparison 6.4 Similarity with Tal 6.5 Discussion of analysis 7 Influence from other languages 7.1 Language contact 7.2 Multilingualism 8 Language vitality 8.1 Functions of languages in the repertoire of the Koenoem 8.2 Means of acquiring languages in the repertoire of the Koenoem 8.3 Motivation for using languages in the repertoire of the Koenoem 8.4 Environmental support for the maintenance of Koenoem 8.5 Differentiation of languages in the repertoire of the Koenoem 8.6 EGIDS assessment for Koenoem 9 Summary 10 Recommendations Appendix A: Dialect Mapping Instructions and Group Sociolinguistics Questionnaire Appendix B: Church Leader Questionnaire Appendix C: School Teacher Questionnaire Appendix D: Sample Observation Schedule Appendix E: Wordlist Appendix F: GPS Points for Select Villages References iv Languages Mentioned in This Report Languages mentioned in this report, with ISO 639-3 codes • Berom [bom] • English1 [eng] • Goemai2 [ank] • Hausa3 [hau] • Igbo [ibo] • Jakattoe [jrt] • Koenoem2 [kcs] • Kofyar [kwl] • Mernyang, reported to be a dialect of Kofyar [kwl] • Miship [mjs] • Montol,4 alternate name for Tehl [mtl] • Mupun, reported to be a dialect of Mwaghavul [sur] • Mwaghavul [sur] • Ngas [anc] • Nigerian Pidgin English1 [pcm] • Pai, former name of Pye [pai] • Piapung, formerly spelled Pyapun [pcw] • Pyapun, former name of Piapung [pcw] • Pye, formerly spelled Pai [pai] • Tal [tal] • Tarok [yer] • Teel,3 alternate name for Tehl [mtl] • Tehl3 [mtl] • Wapan [juk] • Yoruba [yor] 1 In Nigeria, there is a recognized Nigerian English and a Nigerian Pidgin English. We did not pursue specification in this distinction. 2 Throughout the Plateau State there is an orthographic trend for developing languages to use <oe> to represent the mid-central vowel sound [ə] or [ɜ]. 3 There are different dialects of Hausa, but we did not pursue specification of this distinction. 4 Current language catalogues, such as the Glottolog 4.1 (Hammarström et al. 2020), refer to the language as Montol. However, during the Pye survey (Decker et al. 2020b), it was found that the name Montol is considered derogatory and that Tehl is the preferred name. v 1 Introduction This report describes a sociolinguistic survey conducted among the Koenoem [kcs]-speaking communities of the Mikang Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State, in central Nigeria. Koenoem is an A.3 language within the West Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (Eberhard et al. 2020a). While it is difficult to estimate the population with any certainty, we believe that the population of Koenoem speakers is between 3,000 and 9,000. The fieldwork was conducted on 25th April 2019 by Christina Riepe, Adedamola Aregbesola,5 Fittokka Gobak, John Sacson, and Samuel Eju,6 members of the SIL Nigeria language survey team. Ken Decker served as a consultant on the survey and provided writing assistance on this report. We collected information in the villages of Lifidi and Nwoop. This survey report includes linguistic, sociolinguistic, geographic, and demographic information. This profile is used to draw conclusions about the possibilities for language planning and development. Our data indicate that Koenoem oral language use is vigorous, and there appears to be high vitality (EGIDS 6a). All generations use their language in virtually all domains. However, there are a few domains in which other languages are also used. The people expressed identificational reasons for wanting to develop their language and maintain its use. A wordlist comparison with the neighboring Piapung language revealed a high level of similarity, but the groups consider that they have different identities. The Koenoem frequently use other languages, with varying levels of proficiency, in a limited number of domains and for limited purposes. Hausa is most often used for communication with non- Koenoem speakers. Hausa and English are used in schools and churches. Although the Koenoem are multilingual, this has not reduced proficiency in Koenoem for any generation. In this report, the survey purpose and research questions are described in section 2. Background research is discussed in section 3. The methods used in our research are explained in section 4. In section 5, we described some of the geographic, social, and cultural factors that may influence language use. In section 6, we describe linguistic data that was collected and how it was analyzed, and we draw conclusions relevant to answering the research questions about variation within varieties of the heritage language. In section 7, we look at the multilingual environment and multilingual proficiency. Finally, in section 8, we discuss factors affecting language vitality. In section 9, we summarize what we have described in sections 5 to 8 and how it answers the research questions presented in section 2. This study is part of a larger initiative to provide sociolinguistic information to organizations, development agencies, and local communities who are working collaboratively towards meeting