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Language Families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the Historical Implications of Their Distribution Language Families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the historical implications of their distribution Language families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the historical implications of their distribution Jos Linguistic Circle Jos, July 25th 2007 Roger Blench Kay Williamson Educational Foundation - - - 4 6 8 10 12 14 - - - - - - N - - - Republic of Niger Lake Chad Jibiya Lake SOKOTO I A Jalaa H K A G N N C H A D I C U - 12 - R - 12 - O KANO I • Nigeria has a single language isolate, the Jalaa or Cen S E MAIDUGURI M A N D Tiga Lake E A A Tuum language spoken among the Cham in the Gombe A L W K A S J E A (West CHADIC) KADUNA I T (Central CHADIC) n S i T N n J area. e K I B Kainji A P L A T E A U f A o I Lake N W c Dadin Kowa Lake i A l J I - 10 - b - 10 - • Analysis so far suggests that it is unrelated to any other M u A p Shiroro Lake R e D U R D A G I N U P O I D O language in the world and thus is probably a survival Jebba Lake K O R A Ri T D A K O I D ver ABUJA from the hunting-gathering period when West Africa Ni ger Republic of e would have been occupied by small foraging bands AKOKO I D I D O M O I D enu B Cameroon ver - 8 - OKO Ri - 8 - B J U K U N O I D speaking a diverse range of now disappeared languages E N U E - C O N E D O I D G O Y O R U B O I D • Evidence from Mali (Onjougou), Birimi (Ghana) and I D K E Y O LAGOS L I B M R A Shum Laka (Cameroun) puts the settlement of West M K A I N J I Benue-Congo subgroup E I G B O I D V G B E I ENUGU R G U R Niger-Congo subgroup Africa by modern humans at ca. 40,000 BP - 6 - - 6 - S Atlantic Ocean S O K A N U R I Nilo-Saharan subgroup R • Other language isolates are Laal (Chad) and Bangi Me C C H A D I C Afroasiatic subgroup 0 100 200 (Mali) Kilometres Mallam Dendo Cartographic services, July 2007 - - - 12 14 - - 8 10 4 6 - - - - - - - Nigeria: meeting place of three of Plateau languages - - - - 10 - 8 Africa’s language phyla 6 - ©Mallam Dendo cartographic services 2007 K E Y Jos Plateau State capital E Jukunoid Benue-Congo subgroup A • Nigeria is one of the regions of Africa where three of its S BEROMIC Plateau subgroup T BAUCHI KADUNA four language phyla overlap and interact K t r A a l I Shall-Zwall n N e (Beromic) - 10 - J - 10 - • These are; I N C Bijim cluster a - Beromic (Tarokoid) n o t JOS • Nilo-Saharan (Songhay, Saharan) u r d t s c a Shiroro Lake h K - i r W e e • Afroasiatic (Chadic, Semitic, Berber) v z i MINNA e R s Alumic D Jilic n East I t W Ndunic O • Niger-Congo (Mande, Gur, Atlantic, Volta-Niger, Ijoid, i K O Benue-Congo, Adamawa, Ubangian) N Ake R J L Eggon CTA • The Benue-Congo languages (which include Bantu) are R ABUJA Jilic iv LAFIA e N r the richest and most numerous family, including Plateau, N ue ig en D East and West Kainji, Cross River, Dakoid, Mambiloid e Eloyi B I r er O iv N and other Bantoid, as well as Bantu proper (Jarawan and - 8 - R U - 8 - K - - U - J - 6- 10 Ekoid) 8 - Roger Blench Talk to Jos Linguistic Circle 25/07/2007 1 Language Families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the historical implications of their distribution Plateau languages Plateau languages • How many are there? • What is their status? • Ca. 40 at last count with perhaps 2/3 to be • Almost all Plateau languages are threatened, discovered excluding Kainji and Jukunoid except perhaps Berom and Tarok, and a few are moribund, such as Sambe and Yangkam. The • How many speakers are there? main source of threat is the spread of Hausa and • Excluding Jukunoid and East Kainji, ca. 1 further south, English. million. This is largely made up of groups • What classification should be adopted? such as Berom and Eggon. Most groups are • Evidence for a Plateau grouping is present but small (2-10,000). More claim ethnic affiliation has never been published in towns but have poor command of the • Relationship with Kainji and Jukunoid still languages undetermined Membership of Eloyi (previously ascribed to Idomoid) seems likely Plateau languages: classification Beromic languages Proto-Central Ni gerian Proto-Beromic Kainji Plateau Jukunoid Dakoid Tarokoid Shall-Zwall Northern Beromic Central Ninzic Alumic Ndunic Southern Southeastern Eloyi Iten North South Jilic Eggonic Cara Berom Alumic languages Jilic-Eggonic languages J Proto-Alumic L C Jijili Koro-Ija Koro Zuba Jili Ake Eggon Alumu-Tesu Toro Sambe Hasha Roger Blench Talk to Jos Linguistic Circle 25/07/2007 2 Language Families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the historical implications of their distribution East Plateau languages Tarokoid languages Proto-Tarokoid East Plateau Kwanka Sur cluster Bo-Rukul Yaŋkam Tarok Pe Horom Fyem Plateau languages: conclusions I East Kainji languages I • Subgrouping at present is nearly all lexical and • The East Kainji languages were originally identified morphological. I have yet to find any convincing by Greenberg in 1955 as Plateau 1b. This was phonological innovations defining groups. Syntax is ignored by Westermann and Bryan and Rowlands still poorly known. Language contact is extensive seems to have rediscovered this in 1962, using the and regular correspondences (as opposed to wordlists of Meek (1931) like/like correspondences) are hard to find • The idea that Kainji languages were a branch co- • It is also the case that the affix systems of Plateau ordinate with Plateau rather than simply a branch and Kainji have eroded and been rebuilt many seems to have surfaced in the Benue-Congo times; hence the difficulties of finding regular Working Group as did the informal use of the name correspondences with for example Bantu noun Kainji, following the creation of the Lake in 1974. classes. Verbs and their extensions can be Hoffman’s listing in the Index of Nigerian Languages borrowed as a package, hence spurious similarities (1976) calls them ‘Western Plateau’. But Kainji seems to have only been formally recognised in print between Izere and Berom. by Gerhardt (1989). East Kainji languages II • Published evidence for the unity of East Kainji as a group East Kainji languages III and for its subclassification is non-existent. Scattered wordlists, some very short, are found in the BCCW and in East Kainji languages abut the Hausa-speaking the publications of Shimizu. Since the field trips area and their speakers tend to be fluent in conducted by Shimizu in the 1970s there have been Hausa. Many are threatened by the declining virtually no new materials published on East Kainji languages. competence of the children in their own • John Nengel, made a number of visits to some of these languages. Ziriya is completely dead, Sheni has communities in the 1980s to collect historical data but just six speakers and Zora is clearly in decline. studies of East Kainji languages have largely languished. As a consequence,J we began to undertake a survey of LIt is unlikely the trend will be easily reversedC for East Kainji communities, especially in the Jos area, and smaller groups, but larger speech communities focusing on languages reported by Shimizu as severely threatened. such as the Boze, where there is an articulate • So far data has been collected on the Boze [=Buji], Loro, older generation with an interest in language Panawa, Sheni, Tunzu, Ziriya and Zora [=Cokobo] development, are a more realistic proposition. languages. A dictionary project is underway for Boze Roger Blench Talk to Jos Linguistic Circle 25/07/2007 3 Language Families of the Nigerian Middle Belt and the historical implications of their distribution East Kainji languages: classification East Kainji languages Impressionistically, Atsam • How many speakers are there? (Chawai) and Piti are somewhat • No reliable or even unreliable figures available but most groups are very small and language competence different from the others. The declining. Perhaps 100,000 maximum. Kuda-Chamo languages have • What is their status? clearly changed under the • Almost all East Kainji languages are threatened, except perhaps Amo and Chawai and many reported influence of the encircling to exist may well be extinct. The main source of threat Chadic languages. But all the is the spread of Hausa. The isolated lects among the Hausa such as Kuda-Chamo are virtually gone. The remainder seem to form a main source of endangerment is the spread of Hausa continuous chain and the small size of communities. There is some energy now to protect larger languages like Boze, Tunzu and Amo East Kainji languages East Kainji Morphologically, East Kainji languages are simple tiSeni nominal plural forms compared with their Plateau neighbours, with regular affix alternations, transparent concord and Gloss sg. pl. usually CV syllable structures. Nonetheless, there have been some important seed ùgbέrù ùgbέgbέrù morphological changes under the influence of competing languages. tiSeni, in particular has forest ùshìrím ùshìríshím only six speakers. The nominal plural morphology recorded in our survey shows a reduplication of the first syllable instead of the expected affix neck iyâw iyâwyâw alternation.
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