DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2018-004 A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Adara of Kaduna and Niger States, Nigeria Luther Hon, Grace Ajaegbu, Carol Magnusson, Uche S. Nweke, and Zachariah Yoder A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Adara of Kaduna and Niger States, Nigeria Luther Hon, Grace Ajaegbu, Carol Magnusson, Uche S. Nweke, and Zachariah Yoder SIL International® 2018 SIL Electronic Survey Report 2018-004, March 2018 © 2018 SIL International® All rights reserved Abstract The survey team visited the Adara language group of Kachia, Kajuru and Paikoro Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Kaduna and Niger States in Nigeria, from March 1 to March 16, 2011. The team did not visit Muya LGA because the dialect spoken is the same as the one spoken in Paikoro LGA. The Adara people are commonly called Kadara, especially by outsiders. They are known to speak dialects of the Kadara language. The dialects are Adara [kad], Ada [kad], Eneje [kad], Ajiya [idc] and Ekhwa [ikv]. The main goal of the survey was to determine the most suitable dialect(s) that all speakers of Adara understand and accept as the best for a standard written form of Adara that would serve all of them. The survey team tested for intelligibility, interviewed different people and groups, gathered words for checking lexical similarity and asked the people about their potential support of a language project. The name Adara has two meanings in this work: “Adara” as the name of the language, and “Adara” as the name of one of the dialects. As such, we will use “the Adara language” for the whole language, “the Adara people” for the whole people, and “the Adara dialect” for the dialect. For language and people, we will use Kadara in square brackets after Adara when referring to the language and the people, for example: “Adara [Kadara] language” and “Adara [Kadara] people.” Our findings indicate that the Adara dialect may be developed to serve the Adara, Ada and Eneje speakers, while the Ajiya and Ekhwa dialects may need separate literature. Alternatively, the Ada dialect may be developed to serve only Ada and Eneje speakers, while Adara, Ajiya and Ekhwa dialects may each need separate literature. Acknowledgements This survey would not have been possible without the support of many people throughout the language area surveyed. We express our profound gratitude firstly to the paramount ruler, His Royal Highness, the Agom-Adara,1 Mr Maiwada Galadima (JP2), who permitted us to go into the villages of the Adara people to do our work. We also express our appreciation to the various district, village and family heads who mobilized their people to participate in the survey process. We appreciate the time and energy of those who volunteered to help us in eliciting the wordlists from the five Adara varieties, those who narrated the stories used for testing dialect comprehension, as well as the pastors, other church leaders and teachers who, in spite of their tight schedules, responded patiently to the questions on our interview forms. 1 The literal translation from the Adara language means “chief person” or more likely “chief of the Adara people.” Agom means ‘chief’ and Adara means ‘person’. 2 The abbreviation JP means Jerusalem Pilgrim. Contents Tables 1 Introduction 1.1 Previous research/background information 1.2 Social setting 1.2.1 Adara administrative setting 1.2.2 Adara villages 1.2.3 Neighboring languages 1.2.4 Intermarriage 1.2.5 Agriculture and economic/commercial units 1.2.6 Health care services 1.2.7 Religious profile 1.2.8 Estimated population 1.3 Goals 2 Language identification 2.1 The dialects that the Adara people speak in their area 2.2 Dialect relatedness 2.3 Summary of language identification 3 Social interaction 3.1 Intermarriage between the Adara [Kadara] people 3.2 Interaction with neighboring language groups 3.3 Church networks and Christian associations in the Adara [Kadara] language area 3.4 Government officials in the area 3.5 Local development associations 3.6 Economic/commercial units 4 Language vitality 4.1 Children’s language use 4.2 The domains where Adara is primarily spoken 4.3 The Adara [Kadara] groups who mainly speak the local language without mixing with Hausa 4.4 The language that the people mostly use in rural and urban areas 4.5 The people’s perception of their language 4.6 The people’s attitudes towards the shift and death statuses of their language 4.7 The Adara [Kadara] people’s attitudes towards languages of wider communication 4.8 Summary of language vitality 5 Language acceptability 5.1 The dialect(s) that people are willing to read and write in 5.2 Most acceptable dialect that might be used as a standard written form for all Adara people 5.3 The languages that literature is available in 5.4 Summary of language acceptability 6 Intelligibility 6.1 The dialect(s) that the people are reported to understand 6.2 Recorded text testing 6.3 Summary of intelligibility 7 Bilingual proficiency/language use 7.1 Other languages spoken by the Adara [Kadara] people 7.2 Neighboring languages spoken fluently by the Adara [Kadara] people 7.3 Language spoken by each segment of the Adara [Kadara] society 7.4 Where these languages are learned 7.5 Summary of bilingualism iv v 8 Contact patterns 8.1 Interaction among speakers of the dialects 8.2 Local development associations 8.3 Church networks and Christian associations in the Adara [Kadara] language area 9 Literacy 9.1 The age group(s) that can read and write 9.2 The language(s) that each age group can read and write well 9.3 The best medium to serve the Adara [Kadara] people 9.4 Summary of literacy 10 Church support 10.1 Church leaders’ feelings about language development 10.2 The people’s desire for materials in their language 10.3 The people’s ability to work together and support a language project 10.4 Summary of church support 11 Methodology 11.1 Interviews 11.2 Recorded text testing (RTT) 11.2.1 Test development and administration 11.2.2 Reliability of the RTT method 11.2.3 Subject selection 11.2.4 Testing procedure 11.2.5 Scoring 11.2.6 Post-test questions 11.3 Wordlist 11.3.1 Wordlist elicitation 11.3.2 Wordlist comparison 11.4 Observation 11.5 Sampling 11.6 Participatory method 12 Results 12.1 Lexical similarity and interpretation 12.2 Adara [Kadara] dialects for which people can score above 75 percent on RTT 13 Findings 14 Conclusion and recommendation Appendix A: Ada of Kaduna Wordlist Appendix B: Ankwa of Kaduna Wordlist Appendix C: Adara of Kaduna Wordlist Appendix D: Eneje of Kaduna Wordlist Appendix E: Adja of Kaduna Wordlist References Tables Table 1. Names of villages visited and the dialects spoken in each Table 2. Names of markets and market days Table 3. Percentage of Adara [Kadara] language speakers per LGA Table 4. Names of dialects and alternate names Table 5. Where wordlists were elicited and checked Table 6. Comparing words for ‘medicine’ Table 7. Lexical similarity percentage Table 8. Test site and recorded text testing percentage Table 9. Comparing three Eneje texts (different subjects) vi 1 Introduction The purpose of the Adara survey was to elicit data that would assist the Adara people and interested organizations that are involved in language development to identify which of the dialects of the Adara language group of the southern parts of Kaduna and Niger States of Nigeria is most suitable and accepted by the people for a standard written form of the Adara language. The survey team visited the Adara language group of Kachia, Kajuru, and Paikoro Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Kaduna and Niger States in Nigeria, from March 1 to March 16, 2011. The Adara people are commonly called Kadara, especially by outsiders. They are known to speak dialects of the Kadara language. The dialects surveyed are Adara dialect [kad], Ada [kad], Eneje [kad], Ajiya [idc] and Ekhwa [ikv]. Note that there are two meanings of Adara used in this report, “Adara dialect” and “Adara language.” One dialect of the Adara language is also called Adara. Therefore, in this report, we will be referring to this dialect as “the Adara dialect,” the whole language as “the Adara language” and the people as “the Adara people.” We will use Kadara in square brackets after Adara when referring to the language and the people, for example: “Adara [Kadara] language” and “Adara [Kadara] people.” Map of the Adara area © 2016 OCHA ROWCA, through Ngandu Kazadi Bruno-Salomon, the Information Management Officer, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Nigeria – 15, Mississippi Street, Maitama, Abuja. Adapted by John Muniru (used QGIS, free mapping software). Used with permission. 1.1 Previous research/background information Temple reports that Adara [Kadara] is spoken in the southern part of the old Zaria Province in Northern Nigeria, in the districts of Zana, Wali and Kajuru as well as at Riban and in Fuka, in Kuta District of the former Niger Province (1919:179). Gunn further writes that the Adara [Kadara] language is spoken in Bida, Agaie and Abuja Emirates. These areas are now parts of Paikoro and Muya LGAs (1956:123). 1 2 However, he maintains that the actual settlements of the speakers in these three places are not known. Dancy and Gray, in their survey report of 1966, state that the language is spoken north of Abuja and north-east of Minna, while Crozier and Blench (1992:62) report that the speakers of Adara [Kadara] are located in Kachia LGA of Kaduna State and in the former Chanchaga LGA, now Paikoro and Muya LGAs of Niger State.