By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. A language family is a group of languages that traces its descent to a common progenitor. That progenitor ...
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
55. The Arabic Origins of Common Yoruba Words
56. Idioms, Mistranslation, and Abati's Double Standards
57. Native English Speakers' Struggles with Grammar
58. Q and A on Nigerian English and Usage Rules
59. Of Yoruba, Arabic, and Origins of Nigerian Languages
A language family is a group of languages that traces
its descent to a common progenitor. That progenitor is commonly referred to as
the “proto-language,” which linguists can’t quite determine with precision or
certainty, but which is nonetheless conceptualized as the “original” language
from which several related languages devolved.
Linguists have identified four language families in
Africa: Afro-Asiatic, Niger Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan or “click”
languages. Of these four language families, as I pointed out in a previous article, three—that is, Afro-Asiatic, Niger Congo, and Nilo-Saharan
languages—are represented in Nigeria.
That makes Nigeria the linguistic microcosm of Africa.
(Khoisan languages,
also called “click” languages because they sound like short light metallic
sounds, are exclusive to southern Africa).
Before I discuss the language families in Nigeria in some
detail, I want to remark that I have always found the distribution of language families
in Nigeria fascinating because it dislocates our habitual perception of
inter-ethnic relations. For instance, it is customary to refer to people in
northwest Nigeria as “Hausa-Fulani” people. Yet, Hausa and Fulani belong to two
separate language families. While Hausa is an Afro-Asiatic language, Fulani is a
Niger Congo language. That means, as you will see shortly, Fulani, Yoruba,
Igbo, Ijaw, etc. have a common linguistic ancestor, although the Fulani share
more cultural and political similarities with the Hausa.
 |
| A map of language families in Africa; I left out Austronesian in my article |
Again, although the Fulani and the Berom of Plateau
State see themselves as belonging to the furthest poles of northern Nigeria’s
political and cultural divide, especially in light of the recent internecine
ethnic conflict in Plateau State, they not only belong to the larger Niger
Congo language family (to which many languages in central and southern Nigeria
belong); they actually belong to the same Atlantic Congo subfamily of the Niger
Congo family.
Another surprising fact about Nigeria’s language family
classification is that Hausa, the most prominent member of the Afro-Asiatic
family in Nigeria, shares the same ancestor with the Angas of Plateau State. In
fact, just like Hausa, Angas belongs to the Chadic subfamily of the
Afro-Asiatic language family. Yet two ethnic groups couldn’t be more culturally
different than the Hausa and the Angas. Other well-known linguistic cousins of
Hausa are the Tangale of Gombe State, the Bole of Yobe State, the Bachama of
Adamawa State, and the Bokkos of Plateau State (which I learned is former
Governor Dariye’s native language).
Let me know proceed to write brief notes on the
three language families in Nigeria.
Niger
Congo language family
This is by far the largest language family in
Nigeria—and in Africa. In fact, some linguists claim that the Niger Congo
language family has the highest number of distinct languages in the world.
Proto-Niger Congo language is indigenous to Africa, and almost all languages in
Nigeria’s southern and central regions belong to the Niger Congo group. The
best-known Niger Congo language in the far north is Fulani.
The Niger Congo family has many subphyla such as
Mande (represented in Nigeria by the cluster of Borgu languages around New
Bussa and Kaiama called Boko or Bokobaru), Atlantic (which is represented in
Nigeria by Fulani), Gur (which is represented in Nigeria by Batonu in Kwara
State), Kwa (which is represented by such big language groups as Yoruba, Igbo,
Itsekiri, Nupe, Igala, Ibibio-Efik, Idoma, etc. making it the biggest subphylum
in the Niger Congo family), Benue–Congo ( represented in Nigeria by Tiv, Jukun,
Tarok, Kambari, Ogoni, etc.) and Adamawa–Ubangian (represented by several
Adamawa and Taraba languages).
Note that these classifications aren’t neat,
unchanging categories. Linguists frequently revise the classifications based on
new evidence. But experts have determined that the Niger Congo languages share
sufficient similarities in structural characteristics and lexical properties to
warrant being identified as a language family.
The
Afro-Asiatic family
This is one of only two language families in the world that are found in two continents—Asia and Africa. The other is the Indo-European language family that is found in Asia and Europe.
Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Hausa are
prominent members of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Historical linguists say that the earliest
speakers of Afro-Asiatic languages lived in Asia. Some of them later migrated
to Africa. The Bayajidda myth of origin that the Hausa people cherish may very
well be, as one anthropologist says, a folk crystallization of the memories of
this migration.
As with the Niger Congo family, there are many
subphyla of the Afro-Asiatic family in Nigeria. They are the Chadic subphylum
(represented in Nigeria by Hausa, Angas, Bole, Tangale, etc.), the Semitic subphylum
(represented in Nigeria by Shuwa Arab in Borno State), and the Berber subphylum
represented in Nigeria by the clusters of migrant Tuareg or “Buzu” people in
northern Nigeria. The other subphyla of the Afro-Asiatic family—Cushitic,
Egyptian, and Omotic—have no representatives in Nigeria.
The
Nilo-Saharan family
This is the least numerically significant language
family in Nigeria. Most of the members of this language group are in Southern
Sudan and East Africa, suggesting that the Proto-Nilo-Saharan language was
somewhere between Southern Sudan and East Africa. Luo, the native language of
President Barack Obama’s father, is a prominent member of the Nilo-Saharan
language family.
The most prominent representative of the
Nilo-Saharan language family in Nigeria is Kanuri. Other less well-known
members of the group in Nigeria are Dendi (who can be found in small numbers in
the Borgu area of Kwara State and in Argungu and Bagudo local government areas
of Kebbi State) and Zarma (who are native to Niger Republic and whose language
is mutually intelligible with Dendi, but who can be found in small numbers in
many northern Nigerian states). Zarma and the Dendi are Songhai languages.
How
languages are classified
Linguists determine the relationship between languages
and map their divergence, that is, the time they started sounding different
from their “original” source through the science of lexicostatistics and
glottochronology. An American linguist by the name of Morris Swadesh was the
first to develop what he called “100 basic vocabularies” that he said are so intrinsic
to a language that they can’t be borrowed from another language. Some examples
from his list are “one,” “woman,” “tree,” “sand,” “good,” “name,” “sun,”
“moon,” “star,” “blue,” etc.
He compared
these vocabularies (which are now called the “Swadesh list") across languages to
determine similarities in sound and meaning. He used this to group languages.
Other linguists challenged, advanced, or tweaked his
formula over the course of the years to map the development of languages and to
classify languages. The formula isn’t fool-proof, but it has been used to shed
light on the form and content of languages.
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5. Sambawa and "Peasant Attitude to Governance"
6. Adverbial and Adjectival Abuse in Nigerian English
7. In Defense of "Flashing" and Other Nigerianisms
8. Weird Words We're Wedded to in Nigerian English
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11. Nigerianisms, Americanisms, Briticisms and Communication Breakdown
12. Top 10 Irritating Errors in American English
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42. Q and A on Grammar
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45. Top Hilarious Differences between American and Nigerian English
46. The Grammar and Vocabulary of "Fuel Subsidy Removal"
47. Top 10 Words That Are Changing Meaning
48. Q and A on African English and Common Usage Errors
49. Nigerian English as Excuse for Sloppy Scholarship
50. Reuben Abati's Violence Against Metaphors
51. Grammar of Reuben Abati's Semantic Violence
52. Top 10 Grammatical Errors Common to Americans and Nigerians
53. Q and A on Idioms, Nigerian Expressions and Punctuations
54. Q and A on Metaphors and Usage
56. Idioms, Mistranslation, and Abati's Double Standards
57. Native English Speakers' Struggles with Grammar
58. Q and A on Nigerian English and Usage Rules
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