Tyap Language

Tyap is a regionally important dialect cluster of Plateau languages in Nigeria's Middle Belt, named after its prestige dialect. It is also known by its ''Hausa'' exonym as Katab or Kataf.McKinney, N. P. (April 1990), p. 255. It is also known by the names of its dialectical varieties including Sholyio, Fantswam, Gworok, Takad, "Mabatado" (Tyap 'proper'), Tyeca̱rak and Tyuku (Tuku). In spite of being 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.

Distribution

Native Tyap speakers are primarily found in the local government areas of Jema'a, Kaura and Zangon Kataf, although pockets of speakers are also found in Kachia and Kauru in southern Kaduna state, and Riyom (especially Takad speakers) in Plateau State of Nigeria. There are also large speaking communities in Kaduna South and Chikun Local Government Areas of the state. Skoggard (2014) presented the distribution of the Atyap (Katab) people in Nigeria to include: Niger, Nasarawa, Kaduna states and the FCT.

Classification and dialects

Meek (1931:2) suggested that the Katab (Atyap), Morwa (Asholyio), Ataka (Atakad) and Kagoro (Agworok) speak a common tongue and may be regarded as one; and later on, McKinney (1983:290) commented that the Kaje ( Bajju) should likewise be included with the above, due to the linguistic and cultural similarities shared by them. Murdock (1959) classified ''Kagoro'' (Gworok) and other dialects comprising the current Tyap language group as "Plateau Nigerian", in his "Semi-Bantu" branch of "Bantoid subfamily" of "Negritic Stock". Tyap and Jju were placed by Greenberg (1963) under the "Plateau II" branch of the Benue-Congo language family. Later on, Gerhardt (1974) made a reconstruction of the branch, assigning it as "proto-Plateau". Again in 1989, Gerhardt placed Tyap and Jju under the South-Central subgroup, Central group, Plateau branch of Platoid, a division of the Benue-Congo languages. Achi (2005) stated that the Atyap speak a language in the Kwa group of the Benue-Congo language family. However, according to Bitiyong, Y. I., in Achi et al. (2019:44), the Kataf Group (an old classification) to which Tyap language belongs, is a member of the eastern Plateau. He went further to suggest that by utilizing a glotochronological time scale established for Yoruba and Edo languages and their neighbours, the separation of the Kataf Group into distinguishable dialects and dialect clusters would require thousands of years. Also mentioned was that,

noting further that this indicates that

He thereafter summarized that the implication for Tyap is that it has taken thousands of years to separate, in the same general geographical location from its about six most closely related dialects and stated that as a sub-unit, they required probably more thousands of years earlier to separate from other members of the "Kataf group" like Gyong, Hyam, Duya and Ashe (Koro) who are little intelligible to them. The stability of language and other culture traits in this region of Nigeria has been recognized.

Dialects

Tyap has a number of dialects, including:

Phonology

The Tyap alphabet (''Zwunzwuo A̱lyem Tyap ji'') had 39 letters, as drafted by the Tyap Literacy Committee (TLC) during the early 1990s:

However, a current development as of 2018, has the Tyap Basic Alphabetical Chart reduced to 24, as follows:

The letter "ch" would henceforth be represented by the symbol "c", without the "h". All others remain the same.

Vowels

The seven vowels of Tyap may either be short or long monophthongs sounds. The language has five (or six) diphthongs: .

Consonants

The language has over 80 monographic and digraph labialized and palatalized consonant sounds, classified into fortis and lenis modifications. The following table contains the main basic consonant sounds of Tyap:

Syntax

Tyap has the SVO constituent order type as illustrated below in the first given example:

Vocabulary

Affixes and concord

Tyap's noun-class affixes appear after its word stem. These affixes consist of prefixes, usually attached to the root of the word for pluralization. For example: ''a̱som'' (hare)—''a̱yaasom'' (hares), ''bwak'' (hand)—''mbwak'' (hands), ''a̱kwon'' (tree)—''a̱ka̱kwon'' (trees), etc. Meanwhile, the CV suffixes—usually alternating, and following the noun, are usually rendered as separate words in the orthography. For example, ''a̱som wu'' (the hare), ''a̱yaasom ba'' (the hares), ''bwak hu'' (the hand)—''mbwak na'' (the hands), ''a̱kwon ka'' (the tree)—''a̱ka̱kwon na'' (the trees), etc. These constitute the nominal affixes and concord of Tyap.

Reduplication

Reduplication of nouns takes place for pluralization. Usually, the first root syllable gets duplicated. For example, ''tyan'' (place)—''tityan'' (places), ''a̱nyung'' (tooth)—''a̱nyunyung'' (teeth), ''a̱kwon'' (tree)—''a̱ka̱kwon'' (trees), etc.

Words associated with the alphabet

Common phrases and sentences

Comparison of dialects

Comparing the cognate percentages between Kaje (Jju), Katab ("Mabatado" Tyap) and Kagoro (Gworok) on the Swadesh wordlist consisting of 118 items of ''core basic vocabulary'', Wurm (1971), in his remark stated that, the cognate percentages indicate that the three ethnic groups speak dialects of the same language.
_{Percentages of cognates on the Swadesh wordlist: Wurm (1971).}

With a further comparison of their kinship terminologies, McKinney (1983:291), after comparing 174 entries between the above three found only eight to be non-cognate.
_{Percentages of kingship cognate terms: McKinney (1983:291).}

Below are comparisons made by Akau (2020) between the seven Tyap core dialects and Jju.

Numbers

* 0: //
* 1: (also )
* 2: (also )
* 3: (also )
* 4: (also )
* 5: (also )
* 6:
* 7:
* 8: (or )
* 9:

10 to 100

The numbers 11 to 19 are created by adding 1–9 to 10 with the middle (often shortened in pronunciation to and the next a̱, e.g. in , being silent) to the adjoining number, but usually each word is written in full: e.g. (15).

* 10:
* 11:
* 12:
* 13:
* 14:
* 15:
* 16:
* 17:
* 18:
* 19:

The numbers 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 are formed by replacing the prefix 2 to 5, affixed to the "" (ten) with ''n-'', with the itself taking the prefix ''n-'' throughout:
* 20:
* 30:
* 40:
* 50:
* 60:
* 70:
* 80: (or )
* 90:

Other numbers are formed by adding 1–9, similar to the teens:
* 91:
* 92:
* 93:
* 94:
* 95:
* 96:
* 97:
* 98:
* 99:

Hundreds

Note that what could be termed as the "ancient" counting system used for 1-5 is usually used from 100 until infinity. 1 becomes ''jhyiung'', and no more ''a̱nyiung''. Same thing the 2,3,4 and 5 placed immediately after ''cyi'', the word for ''hundred''.

* 100: ''Cyi jhyiung''
* 200: ''Cyi sweang''
* 300: ''Cyi tsat''
* 400: ''Cyi nyaai''
* 500: ''Cyi tswuon''
* 600: ''Cyi a̱taa''
* 700: ''Cyi a̱natat''
* 800: ''Cyi a̱ni̱nai'' (or ''a̱ri̱nai'')
* 900: ''Cyi a̱kubunyiung''
* 479: ''Cyi nyaai ma̱ng nswak a̱natat ma̱ng a̱kubunyiung''

Thousands

Hayab (2016:66-67) in his research on Hyam, a related language to Tyap found out that the original word for number 10 is "kop"/''kwop'', and that the present word used for ''ten'' was the de facto word used for ''twelve'' or ''a dozen'' is "shwak" (in Hyam) or ''swak'' (in Tyap). Due to the growing Hausa/English influence, undoubtedly before 1920 (because Thomas (1920:59) cited an example with ''Kagoro'' (Gworok) which, unlike its neighbours the Nungu, Ninzam, S. Mada and Mama, was not using as of then, the duodecimal system), the counting system has taken the shape of the Hausa/English decimal style and the word "kop/kwop" became almost extinct, while the "swak" took its place and misplaced its original meaning, which is ''twelve'', to now mean ''ten''. With this in mind, when one considers the number "1,000" or ''cyi kwop jhyiung'' ("cyi kwop" is spelled one word), one can say that it literally means "hundred ten one" or "100 X 10 X 1".

Below are the modern Tyap Counting style in thousands:

* 1,000: ''Cyikwop jhyiung''
* 2,000: ''Cyikwop sweang''
* 3,000: ''Cyikwop tsat''
* 4,000: ''Cyikwop nyaai''
* 5,000: ''Cyikwop tswuon''
* 6,000: ''Cyikwop a̱taa''
* 7,000: ''Cyikwop a̱natat''
* 8,000: ''Cyikwop a̱ni̱nai''
* 9,000: ''Cyikwop a̱kubunyiung''
* 2,018: ''Cyikwop sweang ma̱ng nswak ma̱ng a̱ni̱nai''
* 10,000: ''Cyikwop swak''
* 100,000: ''Cyikwop cyi jhyiung''

Larger numbers

* 1,000,000: ''Milyon'' or ''cyikwop cyikwop jhyiung'' or simply ''Cyikwop a̱ka̱feang jhyiung''
* 1,000,000,000: ''Bilyon'' or ''Cyikwop cyikwop cyikwop'' or simply ''Cyikwop a̱ka̱tat jhyiung''
* 1,000,000,000,000: ''Trilyon'' or ''cyikwop cyikwop cyikwop cyikwop'' or simply ''Cyikwop a̱ka̱naai jhyiung''.

Concord

Tyap has three ways of writing units 1-5. This is because concord in Tyap is brought down to only lower numerals and a few adjectives. The 'direct-copy' or 'echo' type of agreement in which the numeral has the same prefix as the noun it is in agreement with, is being followed here. For example, ''a̱ka̱sa'' (houses)—''a̱ka̱sa na'' (the houses)—''a̱ka̱sa a̱feang'' (two houses)—''a̱ka̱sa a̱feang na'' (the two houses), ''nkyang'' (things)—''nkyang na'' (the things)—''nkyang nfeang'' (two things)—''nkyang nfeang na'' (the two things), and ''nywán'' (fowls)—''nywán ji'' (the fowls)—''nywán sweang'' (two fowls)—''nywán sweang ji'' (the two fowls). For the second example, an "n-" prefix is added to the lower unit when used with a plural noun carrying the "hu" singular like ''kyang'' (thing).

Names for other languages

Some Tyap names for neighbouring and other languaɡes are as follows:

.Akau, K. (2020). ntitled work ''Unpublished raw data.

Related languages

A research list called the "Swadesh 100-word List" presented by Shimizu (1975:414) shows that Tyap (''Katab'') shares the following cognate percentages with fellow Plateau languages and Jukun beginning from the highest to the lowest: 72% with Izere (Izarek), 66% with Rigwe, 50% with Chara, 49% with Berom, 42% with Tarok, 41% with Pyem, 41% with Ninzam, 39% with Kuche, 39% with Eggon, 38% with Ibunu, 37% with Rindre and 34% with Jukun.

Endangered status

Research has shown that the Tyap language is classified as one of the endangered languages vulnerable towards extinction.

A study by Ayuba (2014) showed that Tyap is endangered and that the Hausa language and the non-transmission of Tyap by the older generation of Atyap to the younger generation largely accounted for the endangerment of Tyap.

The study recommended, among other measures, that the Atyap Community Development Association (ACDA) should set up a committee to create awareness on the need for Atyap to rise up and save their language and another to work towards establishing vacation schools where older adults would provide pre-school child care where Tyap children could be immersed in the language.

See also

* Jju language
* Kuteb language

References

Further reading

;Books and manuscripts

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* Blench, R. (2008). ''Prospecting proto-Plateau''. (manuscript)
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External links

Sholio (Tyap) ComparaLex

The Book of Luke in Takad

Wordlist Tyap (Gworok)


(in Tyap)

Tyap: Katab language
(Global Recordings Network)

Programs in Tyap
(Global Recordings Network)

World Atlas of Language Structure Online
(Gworok)

OLAC resources in and about the Tyap language

{{Authority control

Tyap
Central Plateau languages
Languages of Nigeria
Endangered languages of Africa