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DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2020-012
A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Kyoli (Cori) [cry] Language of Kaduna State, Nigeria
Ken Decker, John Muniru, Julius Dabet, Benard Abraham, Jonah Innocent A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Kyoli (Cori) [cry] Language of Kaduna State, Nigeria
Ken Decker, John Muniru, Julius Dabet, Benard Abraham, Jonah Innocent
SIL International® 2020
SIL Electronic Survey Report 2020-012, October 2020 © 2020 SIL International® All rights reserved
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. Abstract
This report describes a sociolinguistic survey conducted among the Kyoli-speaking communities in Jaba Local Government Area (LGA), Kaduna State, in central Nigeria. The Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2020a) classifies Kyoli [cry] as a Niger-Congo, Atlantic Congo, Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Plateau, Western, Northwestern, Hyamic language. During the survey, it was learned that the speakers of the language prefer to spell the name of their language
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 Geographical, 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 Kwoli 5.5 Other social descriptions 5.5.1 Occupations 5.5.2 Education 5.5.3 Literacy 5.5.4 Religions 5.5.5 Intermarriage 6 Linguistic relationships 6.1 Classification 6.2 Phonetic inventory 6.3 Variation between Bobang and Hal-Kyoli 6.4 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 Kwoli 8.2 Means of acquiring languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli 8.3 Motivation for using languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli 8.4 Environmental support for the maintenance of Kyoli 8.5 Differentiation of languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli 8.6 EGIDS assessment for Kyoli 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 Ap pendix F: GPS Points for Select Villages References
iii Languages Mentioned in this Report
Languages mentioned in this report, with ISO 639-3 codes • Adara [kad] • Arabic [arb] • Chori,1 alternate name for Kyoli [cry] • Cori,1 alternate name for Kyoli [cry] • Duya [ldb] • Dzar, reported to be a dialect of Hyam [jab] • Edo [bin] • English2 [eng] • Fulfulde [fuv] • Hausa3 [hau] • Hyam [jab] • Hyam of Nok, reported to be a dialect of Hyam [jab] • Igbo [ibo] • Jju [kaj] • Kalabari [ijn] • Koro Wachi [bqv] • Kurmin Dangana (currently no ISO 639-3 code) • Kwoli, people who speak Kyoli [cry] • Kwyeny, reported to be a dialect of Hyam [jab] • Kyoli1 [cry] • Nigerian Pidgin English2 [pcm] • Nok, an alternate name for Hyam of Nok, reported to be a dialect of Hyam [jab] • Sait, reported to be a dialect of Hyam [jab] • Shamang [xsh] • Shang (currently no ISO 639-3 code) • Yaat, reported to be a dialect of Hyam [jab] • Yoruba [yor] • Zhire [zhi]
1 Current language catalogues, such as the Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2020a), refer to the language as Cori; Chori is given as an alternate name. During this survey it was found that
iv 1 Introduction
This report describes a sociolinguistic survey conducted among the Kyoli-speaking communities of the Jaba Local Government Area (LGA) of Kaduna State in central Nigeria. Kyoli [cry] is a Hyamic language within the Benue-Congo, Plateau branch of the Niger-Congo language family (Eberhard et al. 2020a). During the survey it was learned that the speakers of the language prefer to spell the name of their language
4 Mr. Abraham worked with the team as part of his post-graduate services through the National Youth Services Corps. We are grateful for his valuable contribution to the research. 5 We wish to thank CAPRO for the secondment of Mr. Innocent to the survey team and for his valuable contribution to the research. 6 The term ‘environment’ is used throughout this report to generally refer to any factors that are relevant to decision-making for language planning and development. However, in section 8, it more specifically refers to government policies that either support or oppose minority language development.
1 2
Translators (LBT), Calvary Ministries (CAPRO), and the Kay Williams Educational Foundation (KWEF).
2 Purpose and research questions
The purpose of this study is to gather relevant sociolinguistic information for those who are working towards meeting the language development7 needs of minority ethnolinguistic groups. There are two major concerns when addressing language development needs, the environment for heritage language development and the meeting of multilingual needs. The environment we are describing here includes the amount of linguistic variation within the language community, the attitudes towards linguistic and social variation in language use within the community, and the attitudes towards language maintenance and shift. The long-term usefulness of heritage language development depends on the identification of an acceptable central8 variety to develop. The acceptability often depends on the perceptions and attitudes held by the people towards the social and linguistic variation. It also depends on a good linguistic analysis. In general, it is not possible to develop an alphabetic orthography9 that attempts to unite too much variation. Minority language communities need multilingual proficiency; they need people who can access information available in languages of wider communication10. The global predominance of languages of wider communication threatens the survival of minority languages, but multilingualism also offers many opportunities to those with adequate proficiency. It is neither possible nor desirable to preserve monolingualism in a minority language. And the reality in most minority language communities is that they speak a repertoire of languages. The challenge is to maintain heritage language use while addressing the communities’ needs to improve their proficiencies in other languages. To address these realities, we investigated language variation, the repertoire of languages, attitudes towards other languages, literacy, and the vitality of the Kyoli language. We also investigated the potential for development of Kyoli. The following research questions were formulated to help focus the data collection and analysis: • What do people call their language and its speakers? • What evidence of variation between Kyoli lects can be found? • Which languages are used regularly within the Kwoli communities? • Which languages are used for reading and writing, and what is the literacy rate? • What are the social relationships among the various language communities in and around the Kwoli? • What variation in language use patterns is found in the Kwoli communities? • What impact has multilingualism had on the vitality of the Kyoli language?
3 Previous research
There is very little information in the literature available concerning the Kyoli language. The first published data on Kyoli is a wordlist in Williamson and Shimizu (1968) in which they refer to the language as Chori. In 1976, Ivan Dihoff completed a University of Wisconsin dissertation describing the tonal structure of what he too called Chori. Crozier and Blench (1992) included Kyoli in their Index of Nigeria Languages, listing it under the name Cori.
7 For more on the goals and process of language development, see Cooper (1989), and Spolsky (2004 and 2009). 8 For more on the factors involved in the identification of a central variety, see Sanders (1986) and Casad (1974). 9 For more on orthography development, see Cahill and Rice (2014). 10 For more on language vitality and multilingualism, see Lewis and Simons (2017). 3
4 Research methods
Our methods of data collection included the following tools: group and individual interviews, dialect mapping, observation, and wordlist collection. The data collected with these tools were compared to ensure an accurate analysis of the data. (See appendices A, B, and C for samples of the questionnaires, Appendix D for a sample observation schedule, and Appendix E for the wordlists.) The choice of villages from which to collect data was based on recommendations of the community leaders we spoke with.
4.1 Group interview
We conducted group interviews in the villages of Bobang and Hal-Kyoli. In both villages, we first spoke to a community leader to explain our purpose and to obtain permission to gather information from the people. In each village, the community leader invited a group of people to attend a group meeting. He specifically asked several community leaders to participate. In Bobang, we had a group of about 25 people—males and females of various age categories. In Hal-Kyoli we had a group of about 20 people, all males. The interviews were conducted in Hausa. Using the Group Sociolinguistics Questionnaire (see Appendix A for a sample), we asked each group about their community’s: • population • contact patterns • comprehension of their language regionally • language vitality • literacy and access to literature • potential for language development project support Responses given to our questions were mostly a consensus of the groups. Information from the group interviews is discussed in sections 5, 7, and 8. Working with these same groups we also used a tool called “Dialect Mapping.” This tool is designed as a participatory activity which engages community members in the research (Hasselbring 2008).This participatory activity focuses the group’s discussion on the geographical distribution of the language and interaction with neighboring language groups (see Appendix A for more details). We made use of visual aids—papers, markers, pictures, drawings, strings, etc.—to help the groups think and talk through: • villages where their language is spoken • geographical arrangement of the villages in the form of a map • neighboring languages • perceived levels of comprehension in neighboring languages and languages of wider communication. Information from the dialect mapping activities is discussed in sections 5, 6, 7, and 8.
4.2 Select leader interviews
In addition to the group interviews, we also interviewed two church leaders and two teachers. One church leader is a pastor at the Baptist Church in Bobang. The other is a catechist at the local Roman Catholic Church in Hal-Kyoli. The church leader interviews provided information about the religious affiliations in the community, patterns of language use in church, the opinions of church authorities on scripture accessibility, and the perceived benefit of vernacular scripture translations (see Appendix B for a sample questionnaire). We also interviewed a teacher at the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Primary School in Hal-Kyoli and another teacher at the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) Chori Baraki Primary School in Bobang. The schoolteacher interviews provided information regarding the number of staff and their roles, the number of children and their age ranges, the language groups they come from, and language use and attitudes (see Appendix C for a sample questionnaire). Information from these interviews is discussed in sections 5, 7, and 8. 4
4.3 Observation
In each community, we observed which languages people used as they interacted with one another. We noted how the choice of language differed depending on factors including: the age category of the speaker and listener, the time, location, and topic of discussion. No one on the survey team was familiar with Kyoli but we could identify when the people were not using Hausa or English and, in this context, the only logical alternative is that they were speaking Kyoli. We also took note of the current state of development projects such as schools, roads, and health clinics in each community. We recorded our observations in a notebook and used the observed information to fill in an observation schedule. The reader should understand that in a one-day survey the number of documented observations is quite small, fifteen in this case. However, these observations are useful to either confirm or contradict the reported information. Information from observations is distributed in sections 5, 7, and 8.
4.4 Analysis of qualitative data
Since the amount of data we gather is so limited, we can employ a simple “pencil and paper” method of analysis. We list the major categories of information we are interested in: names, locations, population, physical infrastructure, occupations, cultural insights, intermarriage, religions, education, literacy, perceived dialectal differences, domains of heritage language use, language use in religious practices, other-language contact, language use with other language groups, domains of other-language use, proficiency in other languages, interest in language development, and attitudes towards other dialects and language groups. Next, we go through the interview and observation forms and sort the information into relevant categories. There are many ways in which we consider different data. When there are variations in quantifications, for example in population estimates, we simply give the range. When there are differences in non-linguistic descriptions, for instance the ease of access to an area, we may need to refer to the surveyors’ memories. We also triangulate information, for example, correlating if they said they could speak Hausa, if we observed them speaking Hausa, and if a team member engaged them in a conversation in Hausa. For a language like English, which in this part of Nigeria is only acquired through education, we will also consider how much education the person has had or how long schools have been available in the village in order to assess the possibility of higher proficiency. For assessing linguistic similarity, we compare what the people say about the similarities or differences, their perceptions of levels of comprehension, and information learned from wordlist analysis (see section 4.5). There is simply not enough data to quantify the responses. We recognize that much of the information is anecdotal, but we are looking for inconsistencies. If there are no inconsistencies, then we consider that we may be gaining accurate answers to our research questions. Since the surveys are so brief, sometimes there are inconsistencies that cannot be resolved without making a phone call or taking a trip back to the area. Or they may remain unresolved.
4.5 Wordlist collection and analysis
A phonostatistical comparison of wordlists collected in different locations is one method of measuring the similarity between the speech spoken in these locations. Communities with speech varieties that have higher lexical similarity (more words in common) have a greater probability of having higher levels of comprehension. SIL Nigeria uses the 70 percent threshold as a standard criterion for using phonostatistics to differentiate languages from dialects (Bergman 1989:8.1.5– 8.1.6). Lexical similarity above 70 percent typically corresponds with acceptable levels of comprehension between the compared varieties. These may be considered closely related dialects. Lexical similarity below 70 percent corresponds with inadequate comprehension between the compared varieties. These are typically considered different languages. However, sociolinguistic factors need to be considered also. We used the SIL Nigeria standard wordlist of 348 items for our elicitation in Bobang and Hal- Kyoli. There were only 211 items elicited in Hal-Kyoli and none of them were verbs. There were three or four Kyoli speakers present at each elicitation. They were all males, between forty-five and sixty years of age. They were recommended by the chief and the people as good speakers of Kyoli. 5
They were all from their respective communities and the parents of each were speakers of the language. The words in the wordlists were handwritten on a printed wordlist form, using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). We elicited both singular and plural forms (where applicable) for nouns. Verbs were elicited in the infinitive form. Adjectives, prepositions, and conjunctions were also elicited both in isolation and with a sample noun. For documentation purposes, audio recordings were made using a ZOOM Handy Recorder H2 recording device. See Appendix E for the wordlists. These wordlists were then compared using the Wordsurv 7 wordlist analysis program (White & Colgan 2012). Our primary method is to compare the phonetics of words to determine a phonostatistical comparison. Our method does not attempt to identify cognates. A similarity comparison is calculated using a variation of the algorithm described by Blair (1990:31–33). This method is like that used by Gooskens et al. (2008). Despite attempts by Blair to create an unambiguous way to compare words, there are still uncertainties when deciding if two words are similar enough to be counted as similar. Thus, we calculate one comparison in which we include all marginal similarities, and another calculation that excludes all marginal similarities. In this way, we arrive at a range of possible lexical similarity. The higher percentage number of the range is closer to the number of words that are possibly cognate. The lower number represents an estimate of the surface-level phonological similarity. We believe this gives a more realistic prediction of possible comprehension.
5 Geographical, demographic, and social description
In this section, we provide a brief description of some geographical, demographic, and social patterns that influence the environment in which the language is spoken. In some cases, these may have an influence on language use patterns and language vitality.
5.1 Language and people identification
The language was first identified by Williamson and Shimizu (1968) by the name Chori. We assume that the orthographic convention used by other languages in the area of using < C > to represent the word initial [ʧ] sound was applied to the name to produce
5.2 Location, settlements, and administrative division
The Kyoli language is spoken in Jaba LGA, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Blench (2012:17) reported that Kyoli, which he called Cori, was spoken in one village “and associated hamlets,” in Jema’a11 LGA in Kaduna State. We assume that Blench took this information from Dihoff’s dissertation (1976). We found that there are six villages: Fadek, Bobang, Akoli, Hal-Kyoli, Hagong, and Nyamten. However, except for Hal-Kyoli, these are so closely associated that they may be considered neighborhoods of one village. Bobang is considered to be the cultural center of the Kwoli community. Google Earth (2018) identifies a village called “Chori” at approximately 9.54°N, 8.05°E, which, according to the people we spoke with, is simply a collective name for the six villages they had identified. The villages are wrapped around the north, east, and south sides of a large hill, called Egu-Kyoli Hill, that rises more than 240 meters above the villages. The villages are about 80 km
11 The Jaba LGA was created out of the former Jema’a LGA in 1991. 6 straight northeast from Abuja, the capital. See Appendix E for GPS points for several Kwoli village locations. See map 1 for the general area where Kyoli is spoken.
5.3 Population
According to the current Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2020a), the population of Kwoli was 1,000 in 2004. The people of the community and their leaders reported that the last national census, in 2006, put their population at 6,000. During this study, the interviewees estimated the population to be around 7,000 to 8,000.
Map 1. Location of Kwoli villages
Note: Towns and language polygon added by the authors. They do not represent official boundaries or locations.
5.4 Origin of the Kwoli
The Kwoli people trace their origin to a hunter who migrated from Sokoto, in northwestern Nigeria, to Egu-Kyoli Hill, where they currently live. Here the hunter had children, who multiplied to the present population. The Kwoli forefathers used to live on the hill before they moved to their present location around the hill which is the center of the entire Kwoli community.
5.5 Other social descriptions
In this section, we give a brief description of social categories: occupations, education, literacy, religions, and intermarriage. These are relevant categories in a sociolinguistic study because they can be directly correlated to language use patterns. 7
5.5.1 Occupations
Traditional occupations such as farming tend to support the maintenance of a heritage language (Gal 1979). Mining, logging, and trading can hinder language maintenance by creating more contact with other language groups (Headland 2004). When marketing products or purchasing in marketplaces, people need at least a limited proficiency in the languages of the other buyers and sellers. Most of the people who speak Kyoli are involved with farming and a few engage in trading. The Kwoli grow guinea corn, rice, beans, millet, acha, tomatoes, soya beans, ginger, groundnuts, and maize, which is their largest producing crop. The trading is mostly done with the immigrant people living around and among the Kwoli. Many of these immigrants are far from the traditional homelands of their ethnolinguistic groups. They have moved into the area to be near the town of Kwoi (Har Kwain), a major commercial center in southern Kaduna State and the headquarters of the Jaba LGA. Kwoi is located about 10 km south of the Kwoli villages. See section 7.1 for more on the languages of the immigrant groups.
5.5.2 Education
Education influences language use choices and may compete with the language goals of parents and the community. Education is also a pathway to better socio-economic opportunities and parents may desire to prepare their children for school by using the school language in the home. Some level of formal education has been available in the Kwoli area for two generations since the first primary school was built in Hagong village in 1949. Today, there are primary and secondary schools in each of the villages. Most of the children attend for at least twelve years. English and Hausa are the primary languages used for education in the schools. The teacher at the LGEA12 Chori Baraki Primary School in Bobang reported that they use Kyoli for explanation and clarification, and the children are allowed to use Kyoli in the classroom. However, the teacher from the UBE Primary School in Hal- Kyoli said the children would be fined and punished if they use Kyoli in the classroom.
5.5.3 Literacy
Literacy is a requirement for survival in the modern world, regardless of how remotely and isolated some people may live. Therefore, literacy and access to literature, including on the internet, can be a strong motivation for learning another language. Literature that is available in the Kwoli villages is written in either English or Hausa. The literature includes Bibles, novels, magazines, and textbooks used by primary and secondary school students. Muslims have copies of the Quran in Arabic. It was reported in Bobang that a few of the older generation can only read and write a little in Hausa and English. In Hal-Kyoli, the older generation can only read in Hausa. The middle aged, young adults, and children, who have attended several years of school, are more literate in both English and Hausa.
5.5.4 Religions
Religions can either support or hinder language maintenance depending on the policies of the institution. Traditional religions possibly support language maintenance since they would tend to hold on to traditional patterns. The people we interviewed estimated that the Christians constitute the majority, 90 to 99 percent, of the population, while Muslims and those who follow traditional African religions account for equal portions of the remainder of the population. The church denominations found among the Kwoli include: the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), the Anglican Church, the Deeper Life Bible Church, the Baptist Church, and the Bible Bishara church. All the groups we interviewed said that Hausa, English, and Kyoli are used in the churches.
12 Local Government Educational Administration (LGEA) 8
5.5.5 Intermarriage
Intermarriage can influence language choices in several ways. A mother from another language group may teach her children both languages. A husband and wife may choose a third language, a language of wider communication, rather than the heritage language of either spouse. If intermarriage is infrequent, it will probably have little impact on language use in the community. But if intermarriage is a common practice, it can influence language-use choices through the community. If the spouse who marries into the language group learns the local language, it may be an indication of the vitality of that language. An unwillingness to marry someone from a certain language group likely coincides with negative attitudes towards that language. The Kwoli report that they intermarry with any of the groups that surround them. One man explained, “we marry from all the groups around us for the sake of peace and because we, the Kwoli people, see it as a way forward.” They specifically mentioned intermarriage with Ham, Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba. Unfortunately, we were unable to determine how typical intermarriage is these days. This would give more of an indication as to the potential impact of this kind of contact with other language groups.
6 Linguistic relationships
As discussed at the beginning of section 2, one purpose of this research is to gather data that will help in making decisions about language planning and development. One environmental condition that affects language development is the amount of linguistic variation in the spoken varieties. Much of this study is based on the reported perceptions of language variation by speakers of the language. Often people will make vague comments describing the similarities of different varieties. Also, they may have non-linguistic motivations for their assessment of similarities or differences. For good language planning and development, both the linguistic and non-linguistic assessments need to be considered. For successful language development, an assessment of linguistic factors needs to consider variation in the lexical, phonological, and morphological properties of the language. The amount of variation will affect the amount of comprehension between the speakers. To attain the goals of language planning, the areas of development need to be useful, acceptable, and enduring. One useful area for development is an orthography that adequately represents the language and is learnable. A useful orthography usually depends on the amount of linguistic variation the alphabet is able to represent13. A full explanation of orthography development is beyond the scope of this report but an alphabet that attempts to unify a wide range of linguistic variation in sounds and vocabulary will be less useable and less accepted. Acceptability includes the identification of the best variety of the language for development. The “best” choice usually depends on the variety that is most widely understood and the variety that has prestige.14 We refer to this as the central or reference variety. Another consideration in the identification of a central variety for development is how widely a variety is understood. We are interested in the levels of comprehension between varieties because it is important for establishing whether the speakers of two varieties can use the same literature. Ideally, we would want to test comprehension. However, with the limited time allocated to this survey we were unable to make quantitative measurements of comprehension. Therefore, we have used the data we collected to make inferences on the potential for comprehension. To provide a comparison to the reported perceptions of variation in Kyoli we have analyzed the wordlists looking for evidence that may infer the potential for comprehension and the possibility for language development. In section 6.1 we will discuss the linguistic classifications that have been proposed. This helps use to identify the scope of varieties that should be considered in our investigation of comprehension between varieties. In section 6.2 we present a preliminary phonology of Kyoli to focus on the similarities between the varieties. This is considered preliminary because a true phonology requires the detailed analysis of a trained phonologist, which we have not done. In section 6.3, we present quantitative measurements of lexical variation and show some patterned
13 This excludes logographic writing systems. 14 For more on the factors involved in the identification of a central variety see Sanders (1977) and Casad (1974). 9
phonological variation between the villages. The analysis of the data presented in these sections is discussed in section 6.4. We offer the data we have collected in the hope that it will help improve the accuracy of linguistic classification systems and provide a starting point for any phonologist who might assist in the development of an orthography for Kyoli.
6.1 Classification
The Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2020a) reports a classification of Kyoli as a Niger-Congo, Atlantic Congo, Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Plateau, Western, Northwestern, Hyamic language. Blench (2012:97) includes the following languages in the Hyamic group: the previously unreported Shang and Kurmin Dangana, Shamang, Zhire, and the Hyam cluster, which includes Hyam of Nok, Kwyeny, Yaat, Sait, and Dzar. There has been very little study of Kyoli, and no one has suggested that Kyoli is particularly close to any of the other Hyamic varieties.
6.2 Phonetic inventory
In this section, we will discuss some initial, tentative observations of the phonology of Kyoli. It is considered tentative because it is based on a small data set and there was no in-depth analysis of tones or other phonological features, nor has there been an effort to determine the phonemic status of phones. The most salient features will be discussed here. The reader will find other features in the transcribed wordlist that have not been discussed. (See the wordlist in Appendix E.) We begin with a description of the consonants that are most consistently found in all the wordlists. Their frequency of occurrence may be an indication that they are phonemic. The phonemic status of phones is important because those are the sounds that need a unique representation in the orthography. The Kyoli consonants are presented in table 1.
Table 1. Kyoli consonant inventory
- - -
lar Post ve Velar flexed Labial Retro Labio dental Alveo Glottal palatal Palatal Bilabial Alveolar Alveolar
Plosive p b t d ɖ k ɡ kp Nasal m n ɲ ŋ Trill r Fricative ɸ f s z ʃ ʒ ç x ɣ h Affricate ts dz ʧ ʤ ɖʒ Approximant l j w
There are very few differences between the consonant inventories of the wordlists from Bobang and Hal-Kyoli. Most of the difference is in the distribution of those consonants in the individual words. See section 6.3 on the different distribution of consonants. There was only one occurrence of [x] in #116 ‘crocodile’ elicited in Hal-Kyoli. However, it is not an uncommon phone in other Hyamic varieties. Turning now to vowels, the evidence from the Hal-Kyoli wordlist indicates that Kyoli probably has eight phonemic vowels; there is probably only one open vowel. The wordlist from Bobang does not include the open-mid vowels [ɛ] and [ɔ]. Table 2 presents the inventory of Kyoli vowels found in our transcriptions. 10
Table 2. Kyoli vowel inventory
Front Central Back Close i ɨ u Close-mid e o Open-mid ɛ ɔ Open a ɑ
Dihoff (1976) described a tone system with six distinct tone levels. In our data, we only noted four tones. However, we did not focus on tones. In Appendix E, tones are indicated by superscript symbols as: low [ò], mid (unmarked), high [ó], and rising [ǒ]. However, there is also one example of a falling tone: 185 ‘five’ [tû]. The amount of similarity in the consonants between the two varieties is evidence that it may be quite possible to create an orthography that could be used by both varieties. The presence of the open-mid vowels [ɛ] and [ɔ]in the Bobang wordlist not being found in the Hal-Kyoli wordlist may require further research to find an acceptable solution to writing vowels.
6.3 Variation between Bobang and Hal-Kyoli
A phonostatistical comparison of wordlists reveals that there is a high degree of similarity in the lexical items that are compared. There were 348 words elicited in Bobang and 211 words were elicited in Hal-Kyoli. In our comparison, some items were excluded15 because they were either not elicited or they appeared to be making the same comparison as another item. We made two comparisons of each pair following the “inclusive” and “exclusive” comparison methods described in section 4.5. We determined that there is a 93 percent apparent lexical similarity between the speech in the two villages. This is a very rough comparison, and rigorous comparative methods were not used to establish cognates. However, it provides an impressionistic confirmation that the speech in both villages is very similar, and we would not expect any loss of comprehension. While there was no mention of dialectal variation during the interviews, it can be seen from the two wordlists that there is some patterned variation. An explanation of language change is beyond the scope of this report; it is sufficient to recognize that, for any given phonological feature, some varieties will retain an older form of the language and some varieties will express a newer innovation of that feature. From historical linguistics, we learn that languages change as a phonological innovation diffuses outward to other varieties. We are not doing a historical reconstruction, but we have observed some possible phonological conditions for these changes. Following are observations of some patterns of variation between the words elicited from the two villages. There seems to be a shifting of the vowels that may indicate a chain vowel shift in progress (as revealed in tables 3–6). In section 6.2, we mentioned that [ɔ] does not occur in the Bobang list. In most cases, Bobang has [o] where Hal-Kyoli has [ɔ], as shown in table 3.
Table 3. Phonological variation – syllable nucleus [o] ~ [ɔ]
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 13 salt tǒk tɔ́k 96 friend nɖók ndɔ̄k 158 water tón tɔ́ŋ 165 afternoon tenom tènɔ̀m 190 ten sók sɔ́k
In section 6.2, we said that [ɛ] does not occur in the Bobang list. In some words, Bobang has [e] where Hal-Kyoli has [ɛ]. This variation, in table 4, follows a pattern like that shown in table 3.
15 See the note at the beginning of Appendix E describing choices that were made in deciding which words to count and which to exclude. 11
Table 4. Phonological variation – syllable nucleus [e] ~ [ɛ]
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 44 flowers féːɾ fɛ́ɾ 58 shoulder fek fɛk 66 finger hʷěŋ ɸʷɛɳ 104 sheep (pl) ɖʷéŋ ʤʷɛ̀ŋ 154 dew méŋ mɛŋ
Along with the vowel height variation of the previous two examples, the pattern continues between Bobang [u]and Hal-Kyoli [o], as shown in table 5.
Table 5. Phonological variation – syllable nucleus [u] ~ [o]
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 8 pit búm bóm 25 bush puŋ pòŋ 27 forest kus kós 74 heart hʷuŋ çʷòŋ 83 corpse kum kom 108 horn tum tom 173 bow tù to 185 five tû to
To complete this pattern, a fourth variation in vowels occurs between Bobang [i] and Hal-Kyoli [e], as presented in table 6.
Table 6. Phonological variation – syllable nucleus [i] ~ [e]
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 89 person niɾ neɾ 90 father (pl) botí boʧe 97 stranger sín tsen 119 fish sis sés
A push-chain type of vowel shift involves one vowel moving into the position of another vowel, which in turn pushes that vowel into the position of another vowel. We may assume that Hal-Kyoli retains the older vowel distribution since it includes, [ɛ] and [ɔ] which occur in other Hyamic varieties. It appears that in Bobang the open-mid vowels [ɛ] and [ɔ] have risen to close-mid [e] and [o] respectively. This is causing the close-mid vowels [e] and [o] to rise to [i] and [u] respectively. Vowel changes occur over time, and we may not be seeing all of the progress since we do not know what the impact will be with [e] and [o] rising to the [i] and [u] positions, which are already occupied. There is also some variation in consonants between the two locations. There are several examples where Hal-Kyoli has an affricate that has been reduced in Bobang ([dz] > [z], [ʤ] > [z] or [d], [ts] > [s], [ʧ] > [t]), as presented in table 7. 12
Table 7. Phonological variation – affricate reduction
# gloss Hal-Kyoli Bobang 15 leaf dzɛŋ zɨŋ 80 tear drop dzí zǐ 125 elephant mboʤom nbozǒm 20 thorn ʤɔ́k ɖʲòk 104 sheep (pl) ʤʷɛ̀ŋ ɖʷéŋ 147 iron ʤɔ̀m ɖʲom 169 tomorrow ʤà ɖʲα 97 stranger tsen sín 14 tree ʧǐ ti 90 father (pl) boʧe botí 166 evening leʧi lʲeti 14 tree (pl) iʧǐ tʲi 57 neck (pl) ʧʲo tʲǒː 137 stone ʧal tʲάːl 179 work ʧuma tʲuma
There is a further pattern of merger with palatalization in Bobang [tʲ, kʲ, hʲ] and palatalized alveopalatal fricative [ʃʲ] and palatal fricatives [ç] in Hal-Kyoli, which do not occur in Bobang, as shown in table 8.
Table 8. Phonological variation – palatalization
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 28 seed kʲú çú 49 ear (pl) tʲúŋ çʲuŋ 87 language (pl) αtʲěːp aʃʲep 99 name (pl) hʲǔk ʃʲɔk
Possibly related to the examples shown in table 8, there is a variation between the labialized glottal fricative [hʷ] in Bobang and the labialized palatal fricative [çʷ] in Hal-Kyoli, as presented in table 9.
Table 9. Phonological variation – labialization
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 74 heart hʷuŋ çʷòŋ 109 tail (pl) ɖihʷά çʷa 131 honeybee hʷueɖʒ çʷeia aIt is possible that these words are not cognate.
Benue-Congo languages are known for nominal affixation to either mark classes of nouns or to indicate pluralization. In the following examples, the initial voiced plosive [d] or [ɖ] followed by an unrounded vowel [i, e, ɨ] may represent one of these prefixes, but we are not concerned with the morphology. Our interest is simply in the variation in pronunciation. In the following set of examples, the presence of the [d] or [ɖ] in Bobang nouns may indicate an older form than the reduced forms in Hal-Kyoli. Examples of this variation are shown in table 10. 13
Table 10. Phonological variation – syllable nucleus [u] ~ [o]
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 26 grass dèbí ībí 41 egg dɨɣep íɡép 56 eyes ditsú ítsú 58 shoulders difék ífɛ́k 68 bone ɖìkúp ikup 81 cough ɖìŋɡoːmá aŋɡuːma 110 claw diŋɡùk iŋɡuk 113 snake ɖèlík ilìk 138 mountain ɖèɡù íɡu
In the next set of words, presented in table 11, we may be seeing a clearer nominal affixation since there is semantic similarity in most of the nouns. But again, we are more interested in the phonological variation. Since [m] and [b] have the same point of articulation, it would seem that [mb] would be a more likely innovation, a merger of the nasal with the plosive. Furthermore, in the second set of words in table 11, we see that both locations have the [nb] combination, including in an adjective (#189), which may support the prediction that [mb] is the innovation. More evidence is needed.
Table 11. Phonological variation – prenasalization
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 94 chief (pl) nbokúp mbokop 96 friend (pl) nboɖók mbɔdɔ̄k 97 stranger (pl) nbosín mboʦen 101 dog (pl) nboju mbōjú 121 rat (pl) nbopǐː mbopí 125 elephant (pl) nbozǒm mboʤom 102 goat (pl) nbobí nbobí 106 guinea fowl (pl) nbowòk nbowòk 122 bush pig (pl) nboɡursunα nboɡursuna 189 nine nbǒmkùp nbǒmkùp
There is another example of variation that occurs with the labial-velar plosive [kp] which occurs in Hal-Kyoli but not in Bobang, shown in table 12. These examples may indicate a pattern, but there are not enough occurrences to make such a claim with any confidence.
Table 12. Phonological variation – labial-velar reduction
# gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli 60 knee pùlùŋ kpūlūŋ 176 spear pάn kpan
There is one final possible consistent variation with palatalized nasals that we will mention. Bobang has the palatalized alveolar nasal [nʲ] where Hal-Kyoli has the palatal nasal [ɲ]. This occurs in items 17, 18, 55, 70, 103, 105, 151, 152, and 153. However, due to the similarity of these two sounds, this may simply be a variation in the symbol choices made by the people who transcribed the two lists. The variation could not be heard on the recordings.
6.4 Discussion of analysis
In sections 6.1–6.3, we have considered linguistic variation and relationships from five perspectives: in-group perceptions, classification, phonological similarity, lexical similarity, and phonological 14 variation. The people do not report any close relationship with any other language, neither do linguists. A quantitative comparison of the two wordlists reveals 93 percent apparent lexical similarity, which is quite similar. The phone inventories that were compared between the two varieties are very similar, the only difference being in the distribution of some phones. There is some phonological variation between the speech in Bobang and Hal-Kyoli, particularly in the vowels. However, these differences must be considered inconsequential to the Kwoli since they did not report any dialectal variation in the language. We can hypothesize that familiarity with the consistent differences makes the varieties seem to be the same. Furthermore, this variation may not create any barrier to the development of an orthography, but more research is needed.
7 Influence from other languages
It is a widely accepted principle among sociolinguists that less-dominant languages are influenced by more dominant languages when they come in contact with each other. Sometimes it is a neighboring larger, more powerful, or more prestigious language, and sometimes it is a regional or international language of wider communication. Therefore, the impact of these more dominant languages needs to be considered when describing the environment of the less dominant language. The social relationships between these language communities are not necessarily adversarial. Motivations for acquiring a second language vary (Karan 2001; 2011; Karan and Stalder 2000) and often speakers of less prestigious languages are only interested in learning the more dominant languages for the pragmatic benefits of multilingualism. Smaller language groups may also feel less agency to influence their social environment and multilingualism becomes a requirement. However, there are also some language communities that force their hegemony on the smaller groups around them to achieve greater social, political, economic, or religious power. In these cases, it is often advantageous to learn the more dominant language in order to survive.
7.1 Language contact
The Kwoli people said that they live in peaceful relationships with all the neighboring language groups. They are surrounded by speakers of the Hyam language varieties. Other neighboring languages include Gyong to the east, Jju to the northeast, Zhire and Koro Wachi to the west, Shamang and Duya to the south (see map 2). However, the interviewees did not report any significant contact with the Zhire, Koro Wachi, Duya, Shamang, or Jju, and they did not mention any contact with Ashe or Shang speakers. The Kwoli have a high regard for Ham. When asked about a desire for literature in Kyoli, they said that if they could not have literature in their own language, they would like to have literature in Hyam. Since they are surrounded by Hyam they probably identify with them to maintain peaceful relationships with the Ham and a sense of solidarity with them. 15
Map 2. Languages neighboring the Kwoli
Source of roads: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=Kwoi#map=13/9.5328/7.9272. CC BY-SA 2.0. Tribal homeland areas have been added by the authors. They do not represent official boundaries or locations. Accessed May 4, 2020.
Other than the people with whom they intermarry, there are also some people who have immigrated into the Kwoli area. Many of these immigrants are far from the traditional homelands of their ethnolinguistic groups. They have moved into the area to be near the town of Kwoi (Har Kwain), a major commercial center in southern Kaduna State, which is located about 10 km south of the Kwoli villages. These groups are represented in similar numbers throughout the area, not just in the Kwoli villages. These immigrants moved into the area mostly for trade, but now some are also engaged in farming, and some are working in civil service positions. The people we spoke with made a point of emphasizing that all of the neighboring language communities are welcome to farm and trade with them. The languages represented by these immigrants include Fulfulde, Adara, Hyam, Igbo, Yoruba, Kalabari, Edo, and Hausa. The largest number of immigrants is the Fulfulde-speaking Fulani. As a result of intermarriage, some of the Kwoli can speak some of these languages. The primary contact with English is in the schools. However, it seems to be becoming the language of wider communication between educated young people and may, therefore, be encountered whenever and wherever young, educated people may meet.
7.2 Multilingualism
In section 7.1, we described a very multilingual environment. However, most discourse between Kwoli with non-Kyoli speakers is in Hausa. The one exception is that the Kwoli learn and use Hyam, and some people also gain proficiency in Gyong. In Bobang, it was reported that all age groups are multilingual in Hyam and Gyong. As a result of intermarriage, some of the Kwoli can speak other languages, but use of these other languages is limited to a small social network. Hausa is the language of wider communication in the area. Among the people we spoke with in Bobang and Hal-Kyoli, all generations are reportedly able to speak Hausa, although the women and children in Hal-Kyoli were reported to be less proficient in Hausa. The youth were reportedly the best English and Hausa speakers in both villages. Table 13 presents the reported proficiency data for different age groups. These assessments are very rough, and we are uncertain as to how proficient any of the levels are. The five general age categories are: elderly, middle-aged, young adults, youth, and children. The age ranges are not 16 precise; “children” refers to people up to about 12 years, “youth” refers to approximately 13 to 18 years, “young adults” refers to approximately 19 to 30 years, “middle-aged” refers to approximately 30 to 55 years, and “elderly” refers to approximately 55 years and older. There is reason to question the degree of proficiency of the people in Hausa. The church leader interviewed in Hal-Kyoli said that Hausa is understood by most of the people, but that sometimes the Hausa is translated into Kyoli for wider understanding. Thus, he indicated recognition that at least some people do not have high comprehension of Hausa. The schoolteacher in Bobang said that, if given a chance to teach in Kyoli, he would take it because the children would understand Kyoli better and it would support their culture. Again, this seems to indicate recognition that there may be limited comprehension in Hausa.
Table 13. Language proficiencies
Age Hausa English Hyam Gyong Categories Learning to speak in Learning to speak in Limited Children Speak it well school and at home school proficiency Better proficiency Better proficiency Limited Youth Speak it well than other age groups than other age groups proficiency Limited Young adults Speak it well Speak it well Speak it well proficiency Limited Middle- aged Speak it well Speak it well Speak it well proficiency Limited Elderly Speak it well Speak it well Speak it well proficiency
There are several factors that seem to indicate that Hausa, and English to some degree, is being used in an increasing number of domains, or that the domains are having an increasing impact on the lives of the Kyoli. It is possible that for perhaps centuries the people have used Hausa for contact with outside traders who come to the area. However, with improved transportation and with immigration for establishing trading relationships, there are more outside traders in the area, and more Kyoli speakers are having more frequent interaction with these people. It seems that, in the past, people gained proficiency in the neighboring languages for interaction with their neighbors. However, today Hausa is being used more frequently than the local languages since Hausa can be used with almost any outsider. Before the arrival of formal education, informal learning for children would have occurred in Kyoli. Since the implementation of formal education, the children are being exposed to English for the first time. There is also evidence that, due to its prestige, English is being used more frequently as a language of wider communication among mobile young adults. Due to the value of education, parents are motivated to begin using Hausa in the homes to give the children a start on language learning before they reach school age.
8 Language vitality
The presence of other languages and the frequency of encountering other languages outside of the home may influence the vitality of heritage languages. In response to this potential impact, Lewis and Simons (2017:154) describe five conditions that are critical for the sustainability of a language, often referred to as language maintenance. These five conditions are organized by the acronym FAMED: function, acquisition, motivation, environment, and differentiation. a. Function: For the sustainable use of a language the community must be able to employ the language for specific functions. As the number of functions for a language decreases, so does its vitality. b. Acquisition: A community must have a way to acquire proficiency in a language in order to maintain the use of that language. Proficiencyis most often found in the language used in the home. 17
c. Motivation: For sustainability, the community must be motivated to use the language and perceive some benefit of its use. d. Environment: The environment refers to whether the government provides a route for a language to flourish, or if the government hinders the use of a language. It focuses primarily on government policy, particularly that which is funded and enforced. e. Differentiation: Differentiation describes a situation in which different languages are used in different domains. In multilingual communities, there needs to be a culturally perceived differentiation of which language is used for which purposes. This serves to protect a minority language from being overwhelmed by a more prestigious language.
Language endangerment contrasts with language sustainability or maintenance. When any of the above conditions is not met, a language is in the process of shifting or becoming endangered. A language loses vitality when: a. It loses usefulness in the daily functions for which people need language. b. Children are not provided with opportunities to learn their heritage language. c. The community sees no benefit to the use of the heritage language. d. The government provides no institutional support for the maintenance of the language. e. The community does not value the use of the language in some protected domains. In multilingual communities, we speak of a repertoire of languages that are available for different purposes. In this section, we describe the state of the above conditions for the sustainable use of Kyoli. We close the section with an assessment of the vitality of Kyoli language use.
8.1 Functions of languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli
In this section, we describe the various functions for the different languages used in the Kwoli villages as it was reported to us. Kyoli is used predominantly in most domains by all Kwoli. Most adults are also able to speak Hausa. So, there is competition between Kyoli and Hausa in some domains, but Kyoli is used most frequently. When the Kwoli people work on their farms, they use Kyoli. However, in Hal-Kyoli they said they speak Kyoli and Hausa on the farms. English is also beginning to be used in the villages. Hausa and English are the prescribed languages for use in the schools. Of any of the age groups, the youth are reported to speak English best and most frequently. Kyoli appears to be the language of preference for the elderly generation. Some language functions are more essential than others when discussing language vitality. Of importance to note is which languages are used when parents speak to children, among children at play, and the language used between husbands and wives. Kyoli is reported to be the primary language used in the home by all generations. However, the children reportedly also learn some Hausa at home as well as at school. Some parents in Hal-Kyoli reported that they are intentional about speaking Kyoli to the children to encourage the maintenance of the language. However, it was reported that only the older people have a thorough proficiency in Kyoli, which implies that younger adults and youth do not have a thorough proficiency. This may be an indication of the early stages of shift to Hausa or simply that, due to language change, the elderly people feel they speak a “purer” form of the language. Married couples use Kyoli in their homes. However, if a woman from another language group marries a Kwoli man and she does not know Kyoli, they will use Hausa until she learns Kyoli. Kyoli is also the preferred language used among friends. As reported, while Hausa and English are the prescribed languages for education, the teachers in some schools encourage the use of Kyoli in school and they use it with the children for explanation and clarification in the classroom. In confirmation, we observed a teacher speaking in Kyoli with a student when he asked for help. Children predominantly use Kyoli on the playground and when playing with friends around their villages, but they use Hausa or English when including children from other language groups. During breaks at the schools we visited, we observed the students speaking Kyoli with one another and we observed young children walking home from school speaking Kyoli, which is a good indication of language maintenance. Hausa is the main language used in the churches due to the multilingual composition of the congregations. English is used for prayer, youth services, and Bible studies. Kyoli, along with Hausa, is used for announcements and at women’s gatherings. The pastor we interviewed in Bobang stated that he does not understand much Kyoli. 18
While it was reported that there is widespread community multilingualism, there was no indication that the young people are losing their proficiency in Kyoli, nor that they desire to shift to another language.
8.2 Means of acquiring languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli
There is no formal or institutional provision for the acquisition of Kyoli through any means other than oral transmission. Kyoli is the primary language used in the homes. In Hal-Kyoli, some parents said that they are intentional about speaking their language to the children. As reported by the schoolteacher in Bobang, they also encourage the use of Kyoli in school and teachers use it with the children for the purpose of clarification. Kyoli is used on farms and in the marketplace. Therefore, we can see that not only are there many ways in which children hear and can acquire Kyoli on a daily basis, it is also used frequently enough that immigrants to the community also have ways to learn the language. In this area of the country, attending school is the primary means of learning to speak Hausa and English. Both languages are also used in all of the churches, and it was reported that Hausa is used sometimes in the homes. So, while Hausa is not generally learned as a first language, children will recognize its importance at a young age and have opportunities for learning it. In Bobang, it was reported that all age groups are multilingual in Hyam and Gyong. This proficiency is probably learned through contact in schools, church, and the marketplace.
8.3 Motivation for using languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli
In the group interviews, the people expressed positive attitudes towards their language. They said that it is good to speak their language so that in the future their children will not forget their heritage. One man said, “Parents are speaking Kyoli with the children now because we don’t want our language to die.” People of all age groups were observed using Kyoli in public conversations, so there is clearly no perceived shame in speaking Kyoli. The church leader interviewed in Hal-Kyoli said that it is okay to read the Bible in church in Hausa because it is understood by most people. However, indicating that some people do not adequately understand Hausa, he said that the use of Kyoli in church would be preferable for wider understanding. So, there does not seem to be any resistance to the idea of expressing spiritual ideas in Kyoli. The schoolteacher in Bobang said that, if given the chance to teach in Kyoli, he would take it so that he could encourage the use of Kyoli more by the children and to communicate better with them. When asked about interest in the development of their language, the interviewees said that having Kyoli written would benefit the children and youth by helping them to not forget their language and to be able to teach it to their children. This seems to indicate a primary interest in language preservation, rather than awareness of their need for access to information through literacy in their own language. There were other comments that indicated the motivation for speaking Kyoli is associated with a fear of extinction and a pride in their own language.
8.4 Environmental support for the maintenance of Kyoli
While Kyoli does not currently receive any institutional support, the Nigerian government’s language policy encourages oral use of any language in the country and does not hinder any private development of the language (Federal Ministry of Education, 1981). Furthermore, the revised policy on the use of minority languages in education says that “every child shall be taught in their own mother tongue or in the language of the immediate community for the first four years of basic education.” (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2013: section 1, subsection 8.g.)However, the absence of government support means a lack of important institutional support for language maintenance. Adegbija (2007) presents a lengthy discussion on the language policies of the Nigerian government and presents evidence that there is a greater focus on the development of the major indigenous languages (Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo) and English than concern for the smaller, less prestigious minority languages. This factor might affect the language vitality over time, but presently Kyoli use is quite dominant in community life. 19
8.5 Differentiation of languages in the repertoire of the Kwoli
With such a brief time of observation, it was not possible to investigate differentiation in different domains effectively. It seems that Kyoli is stable in most informal domains especially at home, in the community, and on the farm. However, there is an increasing use of Hausa or English in some domains. More study is needed to determine differentiation between domains.
8.6 EGIDS assessment for Kyoli
The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) (Lewis & Simons, 2017) provides a rubric for assessing the potential for sustainability of a language. The EGIDS considers the state of intergenerational support for language maintenance, as well as institutional support, and the stage of development for written use of the language. The scale runs from 0 to 10 with 0 representing languages that are used for international commerce and political policy and 10 representing extinct languages that have no identificational value for any community. Considering the indicators of vitality described in sections 8.1 to 8.5, Kyoli language use is best described as level 6a- “vigorous orality” on the EGIDS. This level is defined as a language that is “used for face to face conversations by all generations and the situation is sustainable” (Eberhard et al. 2020b).However, Hausa and English are the languages of literacy, education, and the churches. This may be beginning to exert some pressure on young people to give more attention to those languages. There does not seem to be any indication of a shift to Hyam, but since there is so much reported contact with the Ham, the contact may be changing Kyoli.
9 Summary
At the beginning of section 2, we identified two major concerns when addressing language development needs, the environment for heritage language development and the meeting of multilingual needs. To understand the environment of the Kyoli language, we have considered the amount of linguistic variation within the community, the attitudes towards linguistic variation within the community, proficiency in other languages, and the attitudes towards language maintenance and shift. We found that
10 Recommendations
We recommend that leaders from the Kwoli community be invited to a joint SIL Nigeria and CONAECDA16 Community-Based Language and Identity Development planning workshop17 to be exposed to the concepts of language vitality and language development. If they desire to pursue language development, they can seek training in language development from SIL Nigeria. The leaders may be interested in contacting one of our partnering language development organizations to implement limited development projects. This could be a good opportunity to assess their longer- term interest in language development efforts. Limited-goal projects may also inspire the Kwoli to engage further in other language development activities and other vernacular products.
16 CONAECDA, Conference of Autochthonous Ethnic Community Development Associations, (Facebook 2020) is a non-governmental organization advocating for the linguistic rights of Nigerian minority ethnolinguistic groups. They provide workshops and other training opportunities to facilitate language development led by the ethnolinguistic communities themselves. 17 CONAECDA is using a modified activity based on the “Language and Identity Journey” (SIL 2020). Appendix A: Dialect Mapping Instructions and Group Sociolinguistics Questionnaire
Hausa translation is in italics. Participatory guidance instructions are in square brackets [ ].
A.1 Participatory Dialect Mapping and Sociolinguistic Interview / Tambayon Hanyar haɓaka Domin Bukasar Harsuna
Village—Gari: ______Interviewer—Mai Tambaya: ______Date—Kwanar Wata: ______State—Jihar: ______LGA—Karamar Hukuma: ______District—Yanki: ______Traditional chief—Tsarki: ______Language assistants—Jagora: ______
Participatory Methods involve observation. Both the facilitator and the assistant can sit in, in order to observe. Please make note of these observations on this form throughout the Participatory Methods session and interviews. Note people’s responses, agreements, disagreements, number in attendance, group’s variations (gender, age ranges), and whatever else you think may be helpful. • Hanyar Haɓaka ya shafi dubawa. Duk mai gudanarwa da mai taimakawa zasu iya kiyaye. Don Allah a rubuta abubuwan da aka lura da su a wadannan bayanin a duk lokacin da ake yin wadanan tambayoyin. Yi la’akari da amsoshin mutane, yarjejeniya, rashin daidaituwa, yawan masu zuwa, ƙungiyoyi na bambanta (jinsi, jere na jima), da duk abin da kake tsammani zai iya zama taimako.
A.2 Language Identity / Harshe Harshe
What is/are the name(s) of your language? [Have them write the name(s) on one piece of paper.] • Mene ne / sunan harshen ku? [Bari su rubuta sunan a kan takarda daya.] Which name(s) do you prefer? [Circle their preferred language name.] • Wanne sunanko sunaye kun fi so? [Kewaye sunan da sun fi so.] What is/are the name(s) of your people? [Have them write the name(s) on one piece of paper.] • Mene ne / sunan mutanen ku? [Bari su rubuta sunan a kan takarda daya.] Which name(s) do you prefer? [Circle their preferred people name.] • Wanne sunan ko sunaye kun fi so? [Kewaye sunan da u n fi so.] What do you call your people in your language? • Menene kuke kira mutanenku a cikin harshenku? What is the word for person in your language? • Menene ana kiran kalman nan mutum a harshenku? When you’re speaking (your own language) what do you call your language? • Yayin da kuke magana da harshen ku, menene kuke kiran harshen ku? When speaking Hausa with other people, what do you call your language? • Lokacin da kuke magana da harshen Hausa tare da wasu mutane, me kuke kira harshenku? When speaking English with other people, what do you call your language? • Lokacin da kuke magana da Turanci tare da wasu mutane, me kuke kira harshenka? What do each of the following call you? (a) Hausa, (b) Others, (c) Government • Menene wadanan suke kiran ku? (a) Hausawa, (b ) Sauran Su, (c) Gwanati
21 22
What does that name mean? Menene wannan sunan yake nufi? • How do you feel about that name? Yaya kuke ji a ranku idan an kira da wanan sunan? Briefly, please, what is the origin of your people? How do you know this? • A takaice, don Allah, menene asalin mutanenka? Yaya aka san wannan?
A.3 Reported Intelligibility / Rehotun Makamantun harsuna
[Take a photo of these two papers and/or write them above.] • [Dauki hoto na takardun nan biyu da / ko rubuta su a sama.] Write observations: • Rubuta bayanai:
A.4 Dialect Mapping / Taswirar Yare
Name all villages where [your own language ______] is spoken. [Have them write each village on a separate piece of paper.] • Rubuta dukan kauyuka inda ake magana da [yaren ku ______] • [Bari su rubuta kowane ƙauye a kan takarda.] [Place these on the mat/table/ground in order to show which villages are next to each other.] • [Sanya wannan a kan taburma / teburi / ƙasa don nuna wajan kauyukan da ke kusa da juna.] [Have them arrange these by location on the ground…use the river, road, mountains, and markets pictures if it helps or if you see these things around. Be sure to circle the villages with a loop and place the language name at the top edge of the loop.] • [Shin, sun shirya wannan ta wurin wuri a ƙasa … amfani da kogin, hanyoyi, tudu, da kuma kasuwanni kalli idan yana taimakawa ko kuma idan kun ga wadannan abubuwa a kusa. Ku tabbata cewa kungiyoyin ƙauyuka da madauki kuma sanya sunayen sunaye a babban gefen madauki.] Which villages speak exactly the same? • Wadanne ƙauyuka suna yin magana daidai da juna? [Mark villages that speak same by letter “S”.] • [Yi makin kauyuka da ke magana iri daya da wata alama “S”.] Which villages speak exactly the same? Wadanne kauyuka ne suna fada abu daidai da juna? [If they name a group, tell them to write the name on a piece of paper and place it based on location. Then ask for the villages of the group to be written on paper and place based on their locations. This should be done for each group and remember to prompt for the names that we have. Circle villages of each group with a separate colored loop, with their names at the top edge of their separate loops.] • [Idan suna kiran wata kungiya ko kauye, gaya musu su rubuta sunan a kan wani takarda su kuma sanya shi bias bangaren da ya kamata, sa’an nan kuma ka umarci ƙauyuka su kasance a rubuce a takarda ka kuma sanya tushe a wuraren da ya kamata. Kowane rukuni kuma ku tuna don fadakar da sunayen da muke da shi. Kungiyoyin kauyuka na kowane rukuni tare da launi mai launi dabam dabam, tare da sunaye a saman gefen ƙananan madaukai.] Do you learn to speak each other’s dialects? • Kuna koyon yin magana da yarukan juna? [Write: “We learn to speak each other’s language” or “We don’t learn to speak each other’s language” for each paper.] • [Rubuta: “Muna koyi yin yaren juna .” ko “Ba mu koyi yin yaren juna” na kowane takarda.] Which dialect (including your own) do you understand 1st Best?, 2nd Best?, 3rd Best?, etc. [Have them place 1st Choice, 2nd Choice, etc. on the villages or dialect groups.] • Wadanne yare (har da naku) kukan fahimce shi 1st mafi kyau?, 2nd mafi kyau?, 3rd mafi kyau? da dai sauransu • [Bar su su aje Zaben 1st, Zaben 2nd da sauran su a kan kauye ko yare.] 23
A.5 Dialect Relationships / Dangantakan Yaruruka
[Pointing to the 1st best, ask:] Do you understand this dialect completely, most or almost all, half, little, or none? [Place “key”18 out, then place All, Most, Half, Little, or Non-smiley face marker(s) by the 1st best. Repeat for 2nd best, 3rd best, etc.] • [Mika hanu akan 1st mafi kyau, sai ka tambaya:] • Kuna fahimtar wannan yare gaba daya, mafi yawa ko kusan dukka, rabi, kadan, ko a’a? • [Saka “makwuli” a wurin, sa’an nan kuma sanya Duk, Mafi, Rabi, Ƙanana, ko Babu alamar. Fuskance mai haske a cikin 1st Mafi kyau. Maimaita don 2nd Mafi kyau, 3rd Mafi kyau, da dai sauransu.] [Pointing to the 1st best, ask:] When you meet people from this dialect group, how do you speak to them? [++ we speak our own dialect and they speak our dialect too, OR they speak their dialect, and we speak our dialect—we speak another language, and they speak another language. Place “key” out, then place ++, or—by the 1st best. Repeat for 2nd best, 3rd best, etc.] • [Mika hanu akan 1st Mafi kyau, tambayi:] • Idan kun sadu da mutane daga wannan rukunin harshe, ta yaya kuke magana da su? • [++ muna magana da yaren mu kuma suna magana da yaren mu, KO suna magana da yarensu kuma muna magana da namu ‒ muna magana da wani harshe kuma suna magana da wani harshe. Sanya “makuli”, sannan sanya ++ , ko ‒ ta hanyar 1st mafi kyau. Maimaita don 2nd Mafi kyau, 3rd Mafi kyau, da dai sauransu.] What other language groups live around you? [Have them write the names of the languages and place them outside the loop, based on their geographical locations.] • Wadanne kungiyoyin Harsuna ne suke zaune kewaye da ku? • [Bari su rubuta sunayen harsunan kuma sanya su a waje da madauki, bisa ga wuraren su.] Which of the neighboring languages do you understand? [Have them write we speak or do not speak each other’s languages.] • Wanne daga cikin harsunan da ke kusa da ku kuna fahimta? • [Bari su rubuta mu magana ko ba magana da harsunan juna.] How well do you understand the neighboring language(s)? [Have them write on each either (a) little, (b) some, (c) well, or (d) very well.] • Yaya kuke fahimci harshen makwabcinku? • [Bari su rubuta kowanne ko dai (a) kadan, (b) wasu, (c) da kyau, ko (d) sosai.] [Take photos of these and make SURE you can read the words in the photos] • [Ɗauki hotunan wadannan ka kuma tabbatar za ka iya karanta kalmomi na hotuna.] If a film or book is going to be produced in your language, which dialect would you prefer it to be in? [Point to the dialect and write answers here.] • Idan fim ko littafi za a samar a cikin harshen ku, wane yarre za ku fi son shi a cikin? • [Nuna waƙa da rubuta amsoshin a nan.] Which dialect should be used as the one for writing, recording, so that you will understand it well? [Have them point.] • Wadanne yare ya kamata a yi amfani dashi a matsayin rubutaccen rubutu, rikodi, don ku fahimta da kyau? • [Bari su nuna.] 1st choice – Why? • Zabin na Farko – Me yasa?
18 The “key” is a list of the markers that are used and what each one means. 24
2nd choice – Why? • Zabi na biyu – Me yasa? 3rd choice – Why? • Zabi na Uku – Me yasa? [Write observations. (See first page for suggested observations.)] • [Rubuta abin Lura. (Duba shafin farko don shawarwarin akan abin da zaka yi Lura akai.)]
A.6 Contact and Prestige / Hulda da Daraja
Which city town/city/village do your people consider as important for all of you? Why? • Wane birni gari / garin / kauye ne mutanenku suke ganin muhimmancin ku duka?Me yasa? What dialect is spoken in that town/city/village? • Wane harshe ake magana a wannan gari / birni / kauye? Where do all speakers of your language gather for your cultural festival? • A ina ne duk masu magana da harshenku sukan taru don bikin al’adun ku? Why do you gather there? • Me yasa kuke taruwa a can? Where is the palace of your paramount ruler located? • Ina masallacin mai mulkinku ya kasance? Tell me other places where your people are located. • Fada mini wadansu wurare inda ake samun mutanenku
A.7 Bilingualism / Domains of Language Use / Yanki na amfani da harshe
What languages can the (people below) in this village speak? • Wadanne harsuna ne (a ƙasa) a wannan ƙauyen ke magana da su/ita? Can they speak each language very well? • Za su iya magana da kowane harshe sosai? Which language do you hear them speaking most of the time? • Wane harshe kukan ji su suna magana mafi yawan lokaci? [(mark with +), or only a bit ko kawai da (mark with -)?] • [(yi alama tare da +) ko (yi alama tare da +)?] Old Men – Old Women • Tsohon Maza –Sofofi Mata Men – Women • Maza – Mata Young Men–Young Women • Samarai – Matashi Children • Yara Tell me the languages people speak in this community. • Ka gaya mini harsunan da mutane suna yi a cikin wannan al’umma? 25
What language(s) are usedː • Wane harshe ko harsuna ake amfani da su: (a) In markets that are in this community? • a kasuwanni da ke cikin wannan al’umma? (b) In schools that are in this community? • a makarantu da suke cikin wannan al’umma? (c) In churches that are in this community? • cikin majami’u da suke cikin wannan al’umma? (d) Among friends/age-mates? • tsakanin abokai / masu aure? (e) Between grandchildren and grandparents? • tsakanin jikoki da kakanninsu (f) Between brothers and sisters? • tsakanin ‘yan’uwa maza da mata? (g) At the farm? • a gona? (h) For prayer at home? • don addu’a a gida? What language(s) do teachers use for instruction in school? • Menene harshe (ko harsuna) da malamai suke amfani da su a makaranta? Which languages do you use during your cultural festivals? • Wadanne harsuna kuke amfani da su a lokacin bukukuwa naku? Which of these groups speak own language the best? (a) Children, (b) Youth, (c) Adult men, (d) Adult women • Wanne daga cikin wadannan kungiyoyi suna magana da harshe mafi kyau? (a) yara, (b) matasa, (c) tsofaffi maza, (d) mata masu girma Which of these groups speak Hausa the best?(a) Children, (b) Youth, (c) Adult men, (d) Adult women • Wanne daga cikin wadannan kungiyoyi suna Magana da Hausa mafi kyau? (a) yara, (b) matasa (c) tsofaffi maza, (d) mata masu girma Which of these groups speak English the best? (a) Children, (b) Youth, (c) Adult men, (d) Adult women • Wanne daga cikin wadannan kungiyoyi suna magana daTuranci mafi kyau? (a) yara, (b) matasa, (c) tsofaffi maza, (d) mata masu girma Which of these groups speak any neighboring language the best?(a) Children, (b) Youth, (c) Adult men, (d) Adult women • Wanne daga cikin wadannan kungiyoyi suna magana da kyau a kowane harshe kusa da ku? (a) yara, (b) matasa, (c) tsofaffi maza, (d) mata masu girma Which of your neighboring languages do you understand? • Wanda harshe makwabta ne ku ke ganewa? How well do you understand the languages? (a) A little, (b) Some, (c) Well, (d) Very well • Yaya iya ganewan ku na harsosin nan? (a) kadan, (b) da dan dama, (c) da dama, (d) sosai When you meet people from neighboring language groups, what language(s) do you speak with them? • Idan kun sadu da mutane daga kungiyoyin Harsuna wanda suke zaune kewaye da ku, wane harshe kuke Magana da su? 26
A.8 Vitality/Muhimmanci
What language (s) do parents/care givers speak to their children in this community? • Wane harshe ne iyaye suna magana da ‘ya’yansu a cikin wannan al’umma? What language (s) do children in this community speak when they are playing? • Menene harshe (ko harsuna) da yara suke yi a lokacin da suke wasa? What language (s) do husbands and wives speak at home? • Menene harshe (ko harsuna) da maza da mata suke yin magana a gida da shi? Which language (s) is/are mostly used everywhere in this community? • Wanne harshe (ko hasuna) ne / ake amfani dashi mafi yawa a cikin wannan al’umma?
A.9 Attitudes towards speakers of neighboring languages / Halin da ake nuna ga masu magana da harsuna makwabta
Which of your neighboring communities do your women and men prefer to marry from or into? Why? • Wanne daga cikin ƙauyukan da ke kusa da ku ke yi matanku da maza sun fi so su auri daga ko cikin? Me ya sa? Which language groups do your people feel reluctant to marry from or into? Why? • Wace harshe ne mutanen ku sukan jin kiwiyar yin aure dasu? Me ya sa? Which language groups attend your markets? • Wace kungiyoyi harshe ne suke zuwa cin kasuwa da ku? Which language groups would you not welcome at your markets? • Wace kungiyoyin harshe ne ba ku da marmarin cin kasuwa da su? Which language groups would you not farm with? • Wace kungiyoyin harshe ba za ku je gona da su ba? Which language groups do you attend church service with? • Wace kungiyoyin harshe ne kuke shida majelisa tare? Which language group’s children do your children go to the same school with? • Wace kungiyoyin harshe ne yaran su suke tafiyan makaranta daya da yaran ku?
A.10 Literature and Literacy / Litattafai da rubuce-rubuce
What reading materials do you have in this community? • Wadanne kayayakin karatu ne kuke da su a cikin wannan al’umma? In which language(s) are the materials written? • An Rubuto Wadanan kayan karatun a wadane harshe ko harsuna ne? Who of these people can read and write? • Wanene daga cikinsu zai iya karatu da rubutu? Old Men – Old Women • Tsohon Maza –Sofofi Mata Men – Women • Maza – Mata Young Men–Young Women • Samarai – Matashi Children • Yara 27
In which language(s)? • A wanne harshe (ko harsuna)? How well? (in each language) [Chooseː (a) not at all, (b) a little, (c) some, (d) well] • Ta yaya? (a cikin kowane harshe) [Zabi Iraki (a) ba komai ba, (b) kadan, (c) wasu, (d) da kyau] What kind of information/reading materials do they read? • Wani irin littattafai ne sukan karanta? What language do they use for texting? • Wane harshe ne suke amfani dasu don saƙo na wayar salula?
A.11 Estimated populations / An kiyasta yawancin
What is the number of all your people in the last national headcount? • Menene kimanin dukan mutanenku a cikin kidaya na kasa wanda aka yi a kwanakin baya? Based on the number of people in your community for the last election, what would you say is the total number of your people now? • Bisa ga yawan mutanen da ke cikin al’umman ku don zabe na kwanakin baya, me za ku ce shi ne yawan mutanen ku a yanzu? Estimated percentage of Muslims: • A kimanta kashi dari na Musulmai: Estimated percentage of Christians: • A kimanta kashi dari na Kiristoci: Estimated percentage of African Traditional Religion (ATR): • An kimanta kashi dari na ATR:
A.12 Community perceived roles of vernacular Scriptures in their lives / Yadda al’umma suke ganin amfanin nassosin harshensu a rayuwarsu
Which category of people do you think will benefit the most if Scriptures were translated into your language? • Su wanda mutanene za su fi riba I dan aka juye littafi mai tsaki cikin yaren ku? How do you think they will benefit from the translated Scriptures? • Yaya kuke gani za su yi riba da ga juyeyen littafi mai tsarkin? When do you think they will use those Scriptures? • Yaushe kuke ganin za su fara amfani da littafin?
A.13 Project Support / Tallafin Ginin
What are the names of your important persons who can be invited to discuss how your community can access Scriptures? • Mene ne sunayen mutanenku masu muhimmanci wadanda za a iya gayyace su domin tattauna yadda za ku iya samun damar samun Nassosi? (a) What are their phone numbers or email addresses? • Menene lambobin waya ko adiresoshin imel nasu? (b)In which city/town/village do they live? • Wane birni / garin / kauye suke da zama? 28
Which churches can be invited to attend the Scriptures access discussion? • Wace majami’u za a iya gayyace su a cikin shirin samun Nassosi a harshen ku? (a) What are the names and phone numbers of their leaders? • Mene ne sunayen da lambobin waya na shugabannin ku? (b) In which city/town/village do they live? • Wace birni / garin / kauye suke da zama? What organizations can be invited for the discussion? • Wadane kugiyoyi ne zaku iya gayyatar don tattaunawa a kai? (a)What are the names and phone numbers or email addresses of their leaders? • Menene sunayen da lambobin waya ko adiresoshin imel na shugabanninsu? (b) In which city/town/village are they located? • Wane birni / garin / kauye ne suke da zama?
Appendix B: Church Leader Questionnaire
Hausa translation is in italics.
Village ______Language ______State ______LGA ______Church Name ______Church Denomination ______Language Assistant ______Position ______Researcher ______Date ______
B.1 Percentage of Christians, Muslims, and ATRs in the area
What percentage of the population in the area is Christian? • Mene ne yawan mutanen da suke Krista a yankin nan? What percentage of the population in the area is Muslim? • Mene ne yawan mutanen da suke musulmi a yankin nan? What percentage of the population in the area is ATR? • Wani kashi na yawan jama’a ne na safi a yankin nan?
B.2 Language(s) in which church leaders are interested in having literature development
Which language(s) do you as a priest/pastor speak with members of your congregation in the community? • Wace harshe kake yi a matsayin firist / fasto yayi magana da mambobi na ikilisiyarku a cikin al’umma? Which language(s) do you use for most activities in the church? • Wanne harshe/harshuna kuke amfani da shi don yawancin ayyuka a coci? In which language(s) do you read the Bible and other materials? • A wadanne harshe/harshuna kuke karanta Littafi Mai-Tsarki da wasu litatafe ciki? In which language(s) do you think is best to read the Bible and other materials? • Wanne harshe/harshuna kake tsammani mafi kyau a karanta Littafi Mai-Tsarki da wasu litatafe ciki? Why do you think this/these language(s) is/are the best? • Me yasa kake tsammanin wannan harshe/harshuna shine/sune mafi kyau?
B.3 Language use for other church activities
What languages are used in the church for preaching? • Wadanne harsuna ana amfani dasu a coci don wa’azi? What languages are used for: • wadanne harsuna ana amfani dasu a: Bible reading? Hymns/Songs? • Karatun Littafi Mai Tsarki? Waƙoƙi? Prayer? Announcements? • Addu’a? Sanarwe? Youth Services? Women’s fellowship? • Ayyukan matasa? Zumuntan mata? Bible studies? Other church activities? • Nazarin Littafi Mai Tsarki? Wasu ayyukan coci?
29 30
B.4 Potential project support
What are the names of your important persons who can be invited to discuss how your community can access Scriptures? • Mene ne sunayen mutanenku masu muhimmanci wadanda za a iya gayyace su don tattauna yadda za ku iya samun damar Nassosi What are their phone numbers or email addresses? • Menene lambobin wayan su adiresoshin imel? In which city/town/village do they live? • Wace birni / garin / kauye suke zaune? Which churches can be invited in the Scripture access discussion? • Wace majami’un za a iya gayyatan su domin tattaunawa na samun Littafi? What are their names and phone numbers of their leaders? • Menene sunayensu da lambobin wayan shugabanninsu? What organization can be invited for the discussion? • Wadanne ƙungiyoyi za a iya gayyata don tattaunawa? What are the names and phone numbers or email addresses of their leaders? • Mene ne sunayen da lambobin waya ko adiresoshin imel na shugabanninsu? In which city/town/village do they live? • Wace birni / garin / kauye suke zaune? Appendix C: School Teacher Questionnaire
School ______Language Area ______State ______LGA ______Interviewee/Position ______Others Present ______Researcher ______Date ______
C.1 School staff
Headmaster’s name ______Number of Teachers ______What languages do teachers use outside school? • with their families: • with other teachers: • with village adults:
C.2 Size and attendance
How many children attend this school? How many children in this area are school-aged? Which villages do your students come from? Which language groups do your students come from?
C.3 Language use and attitudes
What languages are used in class for teaching? 3 In what language(s) are the textbooks written? (3) What language(s) do the children use on the playground, among themselves? • (Confirm this by observation if possible as there may be an “official” answer) What happens if the children use the local language? If a child asks you a question about a school subject away from school grounds, in what language do you respond to him? In what language do you prefer to teach? If you had a chance to teach in the local language, would you do so? Why?
31 Appendix D: Sample Observation Schedule
Speakers Addressee Community Children Young Young Elderly Elderly Outsiders Observations males females males females Children Young males Young females Elderly males Elderly females Outsiders
Marketplace Children Young Young Elderly Elderly Outsiders Observations males females males females Children Young males Young females Elderly males Elderly females Outsiders
School Teacher Student Teacher Student
32 Appendix E: Wordlist
The SIL Nigeria standard 348-item wordlist is designed after the wordlists used by the following: Blench (for example, 2014), who has done extensive historical comparative work on Nigerian languages; the wordlists used by Dettweiler and Dettweiler (for example, 2002), former SIL Nigeria surveyors; and earlier SIL Nigeria surveys (for example, Hon et al., 2018). The transcriptions are preliminary since no in-depth analysis of tones or other phonological or phonetic features was conducted. In the wordlists, all entries represent phonetic transcriptions, although the items are not put between square brackets. Some vowels are transcribed with the IPA symbol for vowel lengthening [ː]. By using this convention, however, we are not implying to have analyzed phonemic length. It appears that there is extensive labialization and palatalization (see section 6.2). We have transcribed these consonants with a raised [w] or [j]. However, we are not claiming to have decided that these are phonemic features; these may be separate approximant phonemes. A few decisions were made as to words that are compared in the following list: • An asterisk (*) in the number (#) column indicates that the items were considered dissimilar. • Number 33 was excluded because it appears to simply repeat another comparison. • None of the plural or 3rd person forms are compared.
Given language name Kyoli Kyoli Given village name Bobang Hal-Kyoli LGA Jaba Jaba State Kaduna Kaduna Language assistantsa AK FJ Age 93 40 Sex M M Reliability: 1st 2nd Elicited by: Julius Dabet John Muniru Date 7 May 2019 7 May 2019 aWe wish to acknowledge and thank the individuals who willingly gave of their time and knowledge to help us to collect these wordlists.
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 1 broom fα fʲα fα fʲα 2 mortar tuːl tʲul tuːl tuː l 3 pestle nɡɨs nɡʲis ŋ̄ɡís ŋ́ɡís 4 rope liːk lʲik liːk iliːk 5 basket disɨŋ asɨŋ āsɛ́ŋ ásɛ́ŋ 6 clothing dètúlá àtúlá àtūlá ítūla 7 road/path di dʲi tín dî dî 8 pit búm bʲúm bóm bʲom 9* house/hut hαːl αhαːl ʃǎn āʃán
33 34
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 10 room zu azú zu azú 11 door lɨk alɨk lɨk alɨk 12 chair/stool dʲola ɖʲoːlà 13 salt tŏk tɔ́k tɔ́k 14 tree ti tʲi ʧǐ iʧí 15 leaf zɨŋ ʣɛŋ ʣɛŋ 16 bark diŋɡùk αŋɡùk ŋɡúk ìŋɡúk 17 branch nαp nʲαp nαp ɲáp 18 root nʲànʲà nʲánà ɲáɲā ɲáɲá 19 medicine ɡok ɡʲok ɡʷɔ́p ɡʲɔ́p 20 thorn ɖʲòk ɖʲòk ʤɔ́k ʤɔ́k 21 firewood fʷěŋku fʷěŋku fʷěŋku fʷěŋku 22 shea butter tree lùwí lùwí 23 mahogany ɡʲŏk ɡʲók ɡʲŏk 24 farm (field) lum αlúm lum αlúm 25 bush puŋ puŋ pòŋ poŋ 26 grass dèbí αbi ībí ībín 27 forest kus kós ākós 28 seed kʲú çú 29 ground nut fʷí ɸʷí 30 bambara nut fʷíŋɡàli ɸʷíjɡālí 31 guinea corn ɡùli ɡùli 32 millet mìhala mìhala 33 millet (another kind) mìhala mìhala 34 yam kír kír kír 35 bean nép nép nép 36 locust bean tree ní ní 37 zobo leaf kʲúm ʃum 38 okra ɗαːnα ɗαːnα 39 meat je jé �́e je 40 fat kés kés 41 egg dɨɣep íɡép 42 tuwo / fu-fu nbós mbós 43 soup ŋɡʲǎp ŋɡʲāp 44 flower fěːr féːr fɛ́ɾ fɛ́ɾ 45 fruit pǔː púː pǔː 35
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 46 hair ʃíhiː 47 head hiː 48 forehead ʃíŋ ʃíŋ aʃíŋ 49 ear túŋ tʲúŋ túŋ çʲuŋ 50* mouth nu ɖiŋɲu wúŋ 51 tooth ʒi ʒí ʒi ʒi 52 tongue lem dilem lem lʲěm 53 chin tam tʲam tam tʲam 54 beard zur n̄zuɾ 55 nose ǹʲú dinʲu ɲǔ iɲù 56 eye su diʦú ̀ʦu íʦú 57 neck tǒː tʲǒː tǒː ʧʲo 58 shoulder fék difék fɛ́k ífɛ́k 59 back ɡɨr liŋɡɨr jɡIɾ jɡIɾ 60 knee pùlùŋ αpùlùŋ kpūlūŋ īkpūlūŋ 61 leg dák dʲák 62* foot kěːr tɛ́ndàk 63 thigh nbadak nbadak mbadaɡ 64 hand nbǒk nbʲǒk bɔk bʲɔk 65 arm bofè k 66 finger hʷěŋ hʷěŋ ɸʷɛɳ 67* skin tuli tʲuli īkʷòl 68 bone ɖìkúp αkúp ikup 69 breast ba ba 70 belly nʲǎ ɲɛŋ 71* stomach hʷìjà khʷi 72 navel kúp kóp 73 intestines nǎŋ nǎŋ 74 heart hʷuŋ hʷúŋ çʷòŋ 75 liver fek fék fɛ̀k 76 body nbǒm nbǒmbóm mɡbom 77 blood ɡiːl ɡiːl 78 saliva αhik αhik 79 sweat iʃik 80 tear drop zǐ ʣí 81 cough ɖìŋɡoːmá aŋɡuːma 36
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 82* pain sip ɣa 83 corpse kúm kóm 84 grave ìkúlá αìkúlá àkūlá 85 woman αkiːl αkʲiːl akiːl 86 man άhὰk άhὰk άhὰk 87 [L1____] language tʲěːp αtʲěːp tʲěːp aʃʲep 88 [L1____] person fi fi 89 person nir neɾ 90 father wetì botí wetì boʧe 91 mother na bonά na bonά 92 child uwe nzam uwe nzam 93 old person αku αkú αku αkú 94 chief kúp nbokúp kóp mbokop 95 blacksmith nina fina ninak finak 96 friend nɖók nboɖók ǹdɔ̄k m̄ bɔdɔ̄k 97 stranger sín nbosín ʦen mboʦen 98 God nóm nɔm 99 name húk hʲǔk hɔ́k ʃʲɔk 100 animal njě jě je m̄ bōjé 101 dog weju nboju wējù mbōjú 102 goat wébì nbobí wébì nbobí 103 cow nʲak bonʲάːk ŋàk ɲàk 104 sheep ɖʷeŋ ɖʷéŋ ʤʷɛ̀ŋ ʤʷɛ̀ŋ 105 chicken wenʲu bonʲu wǒɲù m̀ bóɲú 106 guinea fowl nwok nbowòk nwok nbowòk 107 bird ɖènú ὰnú ɖènú ὰnú 108 horn tum αtum tom atʲom 109 tail hʷά ɖihʷά kʷá çʷa 110 claw diŋɡùk αŋɡùk iŋɡuk αŋɡùk 111 wing hʷép hʷěp hʷép hʷěp 112 feather ʧαr ʧάr ʧαr ʧάr 113 snake ɖèlík αlíke ilìk αlíke 114 tortoise ekʲuːlά αkʲulά ikʲula αkʲulά 115* agama lizard nɡǐr sín bōsín 116 crocodile sakla nbusakla saxla bosaxla 117 crocodile, 2nd 37
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 118 crocodile, 3rd 119 fish sis nbúsis sés bōsés 120 toad nbahobi nbunbahobi mbahobi 121 rat pǐː nbopǐː mbopí 122 bush pig ɡursunα nboɡursunα ɡursuna nboɡursuna 123 red monkey ʧěm nboʧěm ʦem mboʦem 124 buffalo nʲas nʲάs 125 elephant zǒm nbozǒm ʤǒm mboʤom 126 hyena mùlí nbomùlí mùlí nbomùlí 127 fly nzuŋ monzúŋ nzuŋ monzúŋ 128 louse (head louse) iʲop iʲop 129 spider saŋɡatάnaː saŋɡatάnaː 130 mosquito bʲóŋ bʲòŋ bʲóŋ 131* honeybee hʷueɖʒ hʷúeɖʒ çʷei 132 scorpion nɖahi nbonɖahi ndakhi 133 fire wάŋ wάŋ 134 smoke zoŋ zoŋ 135 ashes αtoŋ αtoŋ 136 stick nbʲoŋ abʲóŋ nbʲoŋ 137 stone tʲάːl tʲάːl ʧal 138 mountain ɖèɡù αɡú íɡu aɡu 139 up fά fá 140* down nor bʲabi 141 sky fάŋɡʷam fάŋɡʷam 142 earth, ground bʲelbi bʲelbi 143 mud nɖe bά nɖe bά 144 clay bindêm bindêm 145 sand ìnzèp ìnzèp 146 dust lùni lùni 147 iron ɖʲom ʤɔ̀m 148 money hʷék hʷeːk 149 wind ɡbʷάk ɡbák 150 cloud mina mina 151 rain mʲǎs ɲás 152 rainy season nʲǒp ɲóp 153 dry season tɨŋnʲos tóɲòs 154 dew méŋ mɛŋ 38
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 155 stream hʷér hʷěr 156 river kάp kʲap kάp 157 bridge ɖiɖar ɖiɖʲar ɖiɖar (ɖ)iɖaɾ 158 water tón tʲoːn tɔ́ŋ 159 lake kάp kʲap kάp kʲul 160 moon fé fé 161 star nɡʲès nɡʲès nɡʲɛs 162 sun nonum nɔnɔm 163 year mék mʲeːk mɛk 164 morning sar sar 165 afternoon tenom tènɔ̀m 166 evening lʲeti leʧi 167 night tuk tuk 168 yesterday lé lé 169 tomorrow ɖʲα ʤà 170 ax ɡʲǒ ɡʲó ɡʲǒ 171 hoe kǎi nbokὰi kǎi 172 and ben ben 173 bow tù tʲǔ to 174 arrow riɖiri riɖiri 175 quiver suna suna 176 spear pάn pǎn kpan 177 canoe 178 war hʷὰ 179 work tʲuma ʧuma 180 hunger mìːl mìːl 181 one zìní zìní 182 two fάlì fάlì 183 three tάr tάr 184 four nὰŋ nὰŋ 185 five tû to 186 six fʷùín fʷùín 187 seven tofaːl tofaːl 188 eight nὰnaŋ nὰnaŋ 189 nine nbǒmkùp nbǒmkùp 190 ten sók sɔ́k 39
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 191 twelve sókɖeki fάlì sɔ́kɖeki fάlì 192 fifteen sókɖeki t ǔ sɔ́kɖeki t ǔ 193 twenty ʃoː sαli ʃoː sαli 194* hundred nʲὰk daɾ 195 who? neni neni 196 what? ʦí ʦi 197 when? kά kά 198 how? αʦíː αʦíː 199 where? ɖiwî ɖiwî 200 here ɖíbé ɖíbé 201 there ɖíbójò dibʲɔ 202 this ɡὰjὰ ɡὰjὰ 203 that ɡawa ɡawa 204 white αbʷì αbʷì 205 black αfini αfini 206 red αɡèzi aɡazi 207 long ɖonɖon ɖonɖon 208 short kus kus 209 old αɖi αɖi 210 new αfα αfα 211* ripe αbeli ānènì 212 rotten αfo αfo 213 hot ʃip asip 214* cold ʃuni āduunà 215 sharp ji ji 216* dull αbeʒine akpakun 217 good ʃi ʃi 218 narrow wibílά wīblá 219 straight nαbi nαbi 220 heavy mot moɾ 221 left sîr siɾ fiɾ 222 right jǔ jǔ 223* hard mǒr keɾ 224 soft lùrά lùrά 225 few αʧír af͡siɾ 226 wet mʷobi 40
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 227 dry kʷòlí 228 dirty liːl 229 full ʧòk 230 all wαli 231 I mʲα 232 you ɲʷo 233 you fem. hʷulè 234 he ɲα 235 she ɲa 236 we ɡira 237 you yina 238 they buha 239 knife kʲon 240 my nijα 241 your ɲαː 242 his ɲαː 243 her ɲαː 244 our ɡirα 245 your (pl) jinα 246 their buhα 247 I ate miji 248 you ate muji 249 you fem. ate muji 250 he ate ɲαji 251 she ate ɲαji 252 we ate ɡi ji 253 you (pl) ate ni ji 254 they ate mo ji 255 he is eating ɲa wo ji 256 he will eat ɲari ji 257 he usually eats ɲa ka ji 258 he didn’t eat ɲa be ji ne 259 he wants to eat ɲa him α ji 260 eat ji 261 do kúlǐ 262 dance ʃor 41
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 263 play títínὰ 264 smell núŋnὰ 265 see lǐs 266 blow febά 267 whistle kʷekʷibά 268 sing tirí 269 laugh jeni 270 say ɡòr 271 ask lipʒa 272 beg fěn 273 hear ɡu 274 bark buː s 275 shout ɖíhòi 276 cry ɖiːl 277 fear sǎŋ 278 want hìmí 279 think zép 280 count fǎlὰ 281 know kʲěk 282 teach tάːmὰ 283 show birὰ 284 drink hʷὰ 285 suck vìrά 286 vomit ɡʷei 287 spit tǎr 288 sneeze ʧemi 289 bite pǎ 290 sweep wαŋ 291 sit sit 292 stand sòk 293 fight hαŋ 294 lie down mer 295 yawn bólbùk 296 rest selò 297 sleep lάm 298 wash hʷαk 42
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 299 bathe hwάnʲa 300 steal fěp 301 give ɖʒì 302 hide wunjά 303 take subi 304 hold bαŋ 305 buy ɡoːs 306 sell ɡoːs 307 give birth mar 308 marry bʲaːl 309 die pu 310 kill fʲèr 311 drop mi 312 fall over bu bʲu 313 walk ɡínά 314 run tukira 315 fly zali 316 jump across tòbí 317 swim imʲuːlά 318 come ɡʲα 319 enter hu 320 exit h�̌k 321 go ɡɨ 322 follow ɖolά 323 send ʧom 324 cut wíjὰ 325 cut down bet 326 cut neck wíjὰ 327 break bʷin 328 split nὰbízά 329 scratch kʷaji 330 cook ʃik 331 boil funa 332 fry kαnʲi 333 hunt jάp 334 hit hwuir 43
# English Gloss Bobang Hal-Kyoli Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. Sg. Pl. / 3rd sg. 335 tie his 336 sew sòn 337 forge lά 338 burn kαm 339 throw tα̌r 340 pour tur 341 pour out tα̌r 342 fill tútók 343 push ʧóɖì 344 pull hʷèmí 345 squeeze vini 346 dig bʷά 347 plant ɖòi 348 harvest ja Appendix F: GPS Points for Select Villages
Village name Longitude Latitude Nyanten 9.541769 8.052931 Fadek 9.536171 8.037098 Akoli 9.527695 8.030861 Hal-Kyoli 9.498747 8.045894 Bobang 9.507224 8.088756 Hagong 9.532653 8.070524
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