A Sociolinguistic Survey of the ‘Yara (Kamuku) people, Niger and Kaduna States, Nigeria

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Issue Date: 
2014-01-08
Date Created: 
2007
Extent: 
vi,77 pages
Abstract: 
During two trips in August and November 2007, the survey team visited the ‘Yara (Kamuku) people of Niger and Kaduna States, Nigeria. The main goal was to determine how many of their speech varieties need to have a written form in order to serve the whole group. The focus of this survey was on the Cinda and Regi dialects listed as Cinda-Regi-Tiyal, ISO 639-3 identifier [cdr] in the 15th edition of the Ethnologue (Gordon 2005). Other dialects were included to see if they could benefit from development in Cinda or Regi: Kuki, Kuru and Maruba [also cdr]; Rogo and Shiyabe [rod]; Zubazuba [probably acp]; and Shama and Sambuga [sqa]. The survey team  tested intelligibility between the Cinda, Regi, Kuki and Rogo speech varieties, with the help of comprehension questions concerning natural narrative texts recorded in each variety.  interviewed groups of men and women of a variety of ages about language identity, dialect intelligibility, multilingualism, domains of language use, language vitality, language attitudes and literacy.  interviewed church leaders regarding the use of various languages in church services and for Scripture reading.  interviewed school teachers regarding which languages are used in the schools, the general level of education of the people, and the people’s attitudes towards education and literacy.  collected wordlists; The interviews and wordlists show that Cinda, Regi and Kuki are quite similar. We also were not able to prove that speakers of any of these three dialects found either of the other dialects unintelligible.
Map: 
Color maps including one showing most of the villages where the speech varieties are spoken, another with surrounding languages, and another showing the market days.
Publication Status: 
Published
Table of Contents: 
1. Introduction -- 1.1. The Kamuku people - Previous research -- 1.2. Kamuku and ‘Yara -- 1.3. Kamuku people and languages -- 1.4. Historical setting -- 1.5. Geographical setting -- 1.6. Population -- 2. Social setting -- 2.1. Other languages in the area -- 2.2. Intermarriage -- 2.3. Resident outsiders -- 2.4. Agriculture and markets -- 2.5. Health care services -- 2.6. Religion -- 2.7. Rev. L. E. Tullar -- 2.8. Education -- 3. Sociolinguistic identity -- 3.1. Language identity -- 3.2. Lexical similarity -- 3.3. Acceptability of related dialects -- 3.4. Reported intelligibility -- 3.5. Dialect intelligibility testing -- 4. Education and literacy among the Kamuku-- 4.1. Schools visited -- 4.2. Language policy concerning education -- 4.3. Access to primary and secondary education -- 4.4. Literacy in the communities -- 5. Reported bilingualism -- 5.1. Hausa bilingualism -- 5.2. English bilingualism -- 5.3. Bilingualism in related languages -- 5.4. Non-‘Yara who learn ‘Yara -- 5.5. Bilingualism summary -- 6. Language vitality -- 6.1. Attitude towards their own language -- 6.2. Children's language use -- 6.3. Youth’s language use -- 6.4. Adult language use -- 6.5. ‘Yara vitality summary -- 6.6. Vitality of non-‘Yara Kamuku -- 7. Summary of answers to research questions -- 7.1. Social identity -- 7.2. Language identification -- 7.3. Language acceptability -- 7.4. Intelligibility -- 7.5. Education and literacy -- 7.6. Bilingualism -- 7.7. Vitality -- 8. Conclusion -- 9. Bibliography -- 9.1. Personal communication -- Appendix 1: Kamuku histories -- Appendix 2: Population estimation -- Appendix 3: The National Policy on Education (NPE) on multilingualism -- Appendix 4: Villages visited and data collected -- Appendix 5: Group interview metadata -- Appendix 6: Recorded Text Test (RTT) subject information -- Appendix 7: Wordlist metadata -- Appendix 8: Information about villages and their sources -- Appendix 9: Wordlist data
Country: 
Nigeria
Content Language: 
Work Type: 
Nature of Work: 
Entry Number: 
60335