A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Piapung (Pyapun) [pcw] Language of Plateau State, Nigeria

This report describes a sociolinguistic survey conducted among the Piapung (formerly known as Pyapun)-speaking communities in Mikang LGA, Plateau State, in central Nigeria. Blench (2017:4–5) classifies Piapung as an Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, West, A, A.3, Goemaic, Talic language. We estimate that there may be about 9,500 to 13,500 speakers of Piapung [pcw], which is most if not all the ethnic group.

The goals of this research included gaining a better understanding of the role of Piapung and other languages in the lives of the Piapung people. Our data indicate that oral language use is vigorous and there appears to be high vitality (EGIDS 6a). Parents speak the language to their children and the children appear to prefer it even after becoming educated in Hausa and English. Their attitudes towards the language show they want to see it continuing to be spoken for generations to come. There seems to be some motivation for developing the language.

The people report that there are two slightly different dialects: Moewa and Moedom. A lexical comparison revealed only slight differences between the varieties. The speakers of these two dialects report high levels of inherent intelligibility. A wordlist comparison with the neighboring Koenoem language also revealed a high level of similarity, but the groups consider that they have different identities.

There is some multilingualism with neighboring languages due to contact and there is also some proficiency in Hausa and English attained through education. Although the Piapung are multilingual, this has not reduced the vitality of Piapung, and there is no evidence that they are shifting to the use of any other language. However, due to increased use of Hausa in some domains, it is possible that there may be more evidence of shift in the near future.

This study of Piapung is part of a larger initiative to provide sociolinguistic information to organizations, development agencies, and local communities who are working collaboratively towards meeting the language development needs of the ethnolinguistic groups of Nigeria. The goal is to have a more realistic understanding of language development needs on a national scale. Linguistic and sociolinguistic data were collected through group and individual interviews, participatory discussions, observations, and wordlist collection.