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The forty or so Plateau languages are a tentative group of Benue–Congo languages spoken by 15 million people on the Jos Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa State and in adjacent areas in central Nigeria.
There are over 525 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language and most widely spoken lingua franca is English, which was the language of Colonial Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin – an English-based creole – is spoken by 30 million people in Nigeria.
Pongu (Pangu), or Rin, is a Kainji language spoken in Nigeria. There are about 20,000 speakers. Their main centre is in Pangu Gari town of Niger State, about 20 kilometres southeast of Tegina.
Pan is an Afro-Asiatic dialect cluster spoken in Plateau State, Nigeria.
Cipu (Cicipu), or Western Acipa, is a Kainji language spoken by about 20,000 people in northwest Nigeria. The people call themselves Acipu, and are called Acipawa in Hausa.
Ebira is a Niger-Congo language. It is spoken by around 2 million people in North central Nigeria. It is the most divergent Nupoid language.
The twenty Central Plateau languages are a residual branch of the Plateau family spoken in central Nigeria. Tyap has over 200,000 speakers, and the closely related Jju has well over 300,000. Hyam has another 100,000. Cori is famous for being one of very few languages with six tone levels, though only three are needed for writing.
The Basa language, disambiguated as Basa-Benue, and also called Abacha, Abatsa, ru-Basa, Rubassa, is a Kainji language spoken in central Nigeria, in the vicinity of Bassa, Ankpa, Nasarawa, Gurara, Kwali and Makurdi. Blench (2008) notes that Basa-Makurdi, Basa-Gurara and Basa-Kwali are separate varieties from Basa-Kwomu or Basa-Komo of Bassa, Ankpa and Nasarawa Local Government Areas and other Bassa speakers are Bassa Nge (also known as Bassa Nupe.
u̠t-Ma'in or Fakai is a Northwest Kainji dialect continuum spoken by 36,000 people in Nigeria. There are numerous rather divergent dialects:
Alumu is a Plateau language spoken by approximately 7,000 people in Nassarawa State, Nigeria. It has lost the nominal affix system characteristic of the Niger–Congo family.
Ahwai, also called the Ndunic languages, is a Plateau language cluster spoken to the southwest of Fadan Karshi in Sanga LGA, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Most villages are located at the foot of the Ahwai Mountains in Kaduna State.
Hyam is a regionally important linguistic cluster of Plateau languages in Nigeria. Hyam of Nok is the prestige dialect. Writing the sociolinguistics of Hyam, Blench treats Sait, and Dzar as distinct varieties, and notes that Yat and Ankung may be viewed as separate languages, however, Hayab (2016) presents a differing opinion arguing that it is Ankung, a language called Iduya, that is not mutually intelligible to Hyam. Meanwhile, Hyam, which is spoken by the Ham people of Nigeria, popularly known as 'Jaba' in a recent study by Philip Hayab, a native of the area and a linguist who carried out in-depth research into the language, reveals that 'Jaba' has a Hausa etymology and is derogatory and should be discarded.
Jju is the native language of the Bajju people of Kaduna State in central Nigeria. As of 1988, there were approximately 300,000 speakers. Jju is one of the Southern Kaduna languages. Although usually listed separately from the Tyap cluster, Jju's separation, according to Blench R.M. (2018), seems to be increasingly ethnic rather than a linguistic reality.
Koro Wachi, natively Tinɔr and Myamya, is a dialect cluster of Plateau languages spoken to the north of Keffi in Nasarawa State Kagarko Local Government Area and Jema'a Local Government of southern Kaduna State in central Nigeria. Koro Wachi forms part of a larger cultural grouping with the Ashe.
The Kamuku languages are a branch of the Kainji languages spoken by the Kamuku people of Niger State, western Nigeria, mostly in Mariga and Rafi LGAs.
Lela or C'lela is a Kainji language of Nigeria. It is known as Cilela in Hausa, and it is also known as Dakarkari, because it is spoken by the Dakarkari people
Reshe is the most divergent of the Kainji languages of Nigeria. It is spoken on the northern and southern sides of Kainji Lake. It is spoken in Yauri LGA, Kebbi State, and in Borgu LGA, Niger State.
Adara people, are an ethnic group in the Middle Belt who speak the Adara language, a north Plateau language of Nigeria. Dio Awemi Maisamari is the National president of Adara Development Association (ADA) with his assistant Luke Waziri assistant secretary of the association.
Southern Kaduna is an area of the Nok Culture region inhabited by primarily various non-Hausa speaking peoples living south of Zaria, Kaduna State. It is located in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. Southern Kaduna consists of 12 Local Government Areas out of a total of 23 in Kaduna State. Some view it as being less of a geographical identity and more of an ethnic identity concept.
CONAECDA is an organization that serves as a coalition of indigenous ethnic communities in central and northern Nigeria. CONAECDA works in diverse areas such as language development, community development, and indigenous land rights. It represents a few hundred indigenous groups that are spread across 15 Nigerian states.
References
- ↑ Adara at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- 1 2 3 Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
- 1 2 3 Roger Blench (5 July 2009). "The Eda [= Kadara] language of Central Nigeria" (PDF).
- ↑ Joshua project entry on the Adara
- 1 2 Hon, Luther; Ajaegbu, Grace; Magnusson, Carol; Nweke, Uche S.; Yoder, Zachariah (27 April 2012). "A Summary of a Sociolinguistic Survey of the Adara of Kaduna and Niger States, Nigeria" (PDF). SIL.