Karai-karai (Francophonic spelling: Karekare, Kerrikerri, Ajami: كاراي-كاراي) is the third largest Chadic language by number of speakers, and a language spoken in

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

, most prominently North eastern Nigeria. The number of speakers of Karai-karai is estimated between 1,500,000 and 1,800,000 million, primarily spoken by the

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

Karai-Karai people. It is an

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

language spoken principally in

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

with communities in

Bauchi State Bauchi (Fula: ''Leydi Bauchi'' 𞤤𞤫𞤴𞤣𞤭 𞤦𞤢𞤵𞤷𞥅𞤭) is a States of Nigeria, state in the North East (Nigeria), North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria. It is bordered by Jigawa State, Jigawa to the north, Yobe State, Y ...

Yobe State Yobe is a States of Nigeria, state located in northeastern Nigeria. A mainly agricultural state, it was created on 27 August 1991. Yobe State was carved out of Borno State. The capital of Yobe State is Damaturu, and its largest city by populati ...

Gombe State Gombe State (; ) is a States of Nigeria, state in North East (Nigeria), northeastern Nigeria, bordered to the north and northeast by the states of Borno State, Borno in the vicinity of Gongola River and Lake Dadin Kowa Dam, Dadin Kowa and Yobe S ...

and other parts of

. Many Karai-karai words share a common origin with the

Northwest Semitic Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite l ...

languages of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. The Karai-karai language is most closely related to the Ngamo and Bole languages (spoken in north eastern Nigeria) which are both considered derivatives of the Karai-karai language.

Distribution

Karai-karai (and its dialects) is a well-spoken language in the following northern Nigerian states: * Bauchi State * Yobe State * Borno State * Gombe State * Taraba State * Adamawa State * Jigawa State * Kano State * Nasarawa State

Classification

Karai-karai is classified among the Bole-Tangale languages, together with

Bure Bure may refer to: Places Belgium * Bure, Wallonia, Belgium, a small village in the Tellin municipality * Battle of Bure, a World War II battle during the Battle of the Bulge Eritrea and Ethiopia * Bure (disputed zone), on the border between Eri ...

, Deno,

Gero Gero I ( 900 – 20 May 965), sometimes called the Great (),Thompson, 486. Also se was a nobleman from East Francia who ruled an initially modest march centred on Merseburg in the south of the present German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which he ...

, Geruma, Galambu, Giiwo, Kubi, Maaka, Ɓeele, Daza,

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

, Ngamo, Bole and the isolate Tangale form the BoleTangale group of languages within the West Chadic branch of the

Chadic The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 196 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, and northern Cameroon. By far the most widely ...

family. In present-day

, it is estimated that there are over 2 million Karai-karai primary and secondary language speakers within Nigeria, it is the second most widely spoken language in North eastearn Nigeria.

Bole-Tangale languages

Below is a comprehensive list of Bole–Tangale languages names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019). It is the subgroup which the Karai-karai language belongs

Literary Karai-karai

Standard Karai-karai has its origin in the 1950s, when Northern Region Literary Agency (NORLA) worked on the book Ndar Ma Karatu which is the earliest publication in Karai-karai published by Gaskiya Corporation.

Writing system

Alphabets

Karai-karai language is written with the basic Latin script, with four diacritics appearing on vowels (circumflex accent, acute accent, grave accent) and the cedilla appearing in "ç" and "ş". The Latin letters ⟨q⟩, ⟨v⟩, ⟨x⟩ are not used as part of the official orthography of Standard Karai-karai.

Orthography

* Digraphs: dl, hn, tl, zh, lh, lz, zh, sh, ny, nz, nd, nt, nc, nk, nj, ng, mp, mb. mɓ, kw, gw, ƙw, zh, sh. * Trigraphs: nlz, nzh, ngw, nkw * Accents: à, â, á, ā, è, ê, é, ē, ì, í, ī, î, ò, ō, ó, ù, ū, ú, ā̀, ḕ, ī̀, ṑ, ū̀, ā́, ḗ, ī́, ṓ, ū́.

Vowels

The Karai-karai language has five long vowels, a, e, i, o, u and five long vowels :, e:, i:, o:, and u:these five long vowels are written as ā, ē, ī, ō, ū or with double letters as follows: aa, ee, ii, oo, and uu as used by some dialects. The diphthongs: au and ai.

Gallery

File:Bala Bara Majalam 09.jpg, Bala Bara Majalam is festival of a Karai-karai ethnic group's of Jalam town Yobe State 2024 File:Bala Bara Majalam 08.jpg File:Bala Bara Majalam 07.jpg File:Bala Bara Majalam 06.jpg File:Bala Bara Majalam 04.jpg

References

Works cited

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Karai-karai language West Chadic languages Languages of Nigeria