Tiv language

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Tiv
Tiv
Native toNigeria
RegionBenue State, Cross River State, Plateau State, Taraba State
EthnicityTiv
Native speakers
5.2 million (2024)[1]
Niger–Congo?
  • Southern Bantoid
Language codes
ISO 639-2tiv
ISO 639-3tiv
Glottologtivv1240

Tiv is a

North Central Nigeria, with some speakers in Cameroon. It had over 5.2 million speakers in 2024. The largest population of Tiv speakers are found in Benue state in Nigeria. The language is also widely spoken in some Nigerian states namely, Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa, Cross River, Adamawa, Kaduna, and Abuja. It is by far the largest of the Tivoid languages, a group of languages belonging to the Southern Bantoid languages
.

History and classification[2]

The first reference to the Tiv language (dzwa Tiv) was made by

Ekoi or other neighbouring languages. Malherbe (1933) agrees with Abraham that Tiv is essentially Bantu.[6]

All material on Tiv seems to point to a recent expansion, perhaps in the early 15th century.[7]

Geographic distribution

Tiv is widely spoken in the States of Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba, Cross Rivers, Adamawa, Kaduna, and Abuja, Nigeria. Other parts of Nigeria also speak Tiv.

Nigeria

Benue State

Katsina Ala, Guma, Buruku, and Ushongo
Local Government Areas.

Nassarawa State

Doma, Nasarawa, Lafia, Obi, Keana, and Awe Local Government Areas

Plateau State

Tiv-speaking populations are found in Langtang South, Shendam, Qua’an-Pan and Wase area councils.

Taraba State

Bali, Donga, Ibi, Gassol, Takum, Gashaka, Kurmi and Wukari Local Government Areas.

Together with thousands of other Tivoid groups like the

Ambo
in Sardauna Local government area.

Cross River State

Yala, Bekwarra, Obudu and Obanliku Local Government Areas.

Together with thousands of other tivoid groups like the Utanga, Ceve or Becheve, Evant, Eman etc.

Cameroon

There are 1900 Tiv households with approximately 20,000 people at the south-western border of Cameroon

Anglophone Cameroon[8] as their ancestral land, while a few others live in the francophone region. They are mostly farmers but others work in the government.[9]

Although some Nigerian tiv people are unaware of some of the Tiv peoples of the Cameroon because of the international border but, these groups always regard themselves as Tiv. Some of them have an additional dialect to the main Tiv language. These Tiv groups are;

Bitare, Mesaka, Iyive, Ceve or Becheve, Evant, Eman, Ipulo, Caka etc. They together with the Tiv in Nigeria share the same culture, History, Religion, and Tradition. They are basically the same people.[citation needed
]

Dialects

Tiv speakers can understand each other across their territory. Although, the Hyarev people speak some words totally different from others. However, accents (ham) exist.[10]

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Near-close ɪː ʊː
Mid e oː
Open-mid ɜː ɔ, ɔː
Open a, aː ɒ
  • Vowel sounds are phonetically nasalized before nasal consonants.
  • /a/ can be freely heard as [æ̃] or [ɑ̃] before a nasal consonant.[11]

Consonants

Bilabial Labio-
dental 		Alveolar
Palato-
alveolar
 Palatal Velar Glottal
plain lab. pal.
Stop
 voiceless p
t
 		k kʷ kʲ
voiced b
d
 		ɡ ɡʷ ɡʲ
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd
Affricate
 voiceless t͡s t͡ʃ k͡p
voiced (d͡z) d͡ʒ ɡ͡b
prenasal ⁿd͡z
Fricative
 voiceless f s ʃ (x) h
voiced v z ɣ
Nasal m (ɱ)
n
 		ɲ ŋ
Trill
r
Approximant
 w
l
 		j
  • /ɣ/ is heard phonetically as [x], but is often voiced as [ɣ].
  • [ɱ] is heard in free variation in word-final positions.
  • [d͡z] occurs in other dialects.[12]

Tone

Tiv has three main tones (five if rising and falling are counted as separate tones instead of composites of existing tones).[13] They are most importantly used in inflection.[6]

Accents

The accents of Tiv are as follows:

  • Ityoisha, spoken in the southeast, noted for its exaggerated
    palatalisation
    of vowels;
  • Shitile, spoken by most Tiv east of the Katsina Ala River, apparently slower sounding than the other Tiv accents and slurs vowels into their neighbouring consonant;
  • Iharev, which gives an exaggerated roll to the phoneme [r]~[l]
  • Kparev, spoken in the centre and south-centre;
    • Kunav, a sub-group of Kparev, noted for its preference for [d͡ʒ] sounds where other Kparev use [d͡z].[6]

Vocabulary, particularly plant and tool names, changes from one part of Tiv territory to the other.[14]

Morphology

Tiv has nine

noun classes.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Tiv at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ISBN 9781315295794
    .
  3. ^ "A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages". Oxford University Press.
  4. ^ "The grammar of Tiv". Abraham, Roy Clive.
  5. ^ "A dictionary of the tiv language". Abraham, Roy Clive.
  6. ^
    ISBN 9781315295794
    .
  7. ^ Blench, Roger (June 2016). "The Tivoid languages: overview and comparative wordlist" (PDF). p. 16.
  8. ^ "Definition of ANGLOPHONE". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2022-08-30.
  9. ^ https://www.joshuaproject.net/people_groups/15505/CM
  10. ^ "The Tivoid languages: Overview and Comparative Word List". Blench, Roger M. 2016.
  11. ^ "Historicolinguistic study of convergence and divergence in the Tivoid languages phylum". University of Nigeria MA thesis. (172pp.), Alyebo, Nelson Orkaan. 2018.
  12. ^ Sokpo, Rosaline M. (2016). An Autosegmental Analysis of Tiv Phonology.
  13. ^ "The grammar of Tiv". Kaduna: Nigeria Political Service. 108+202pp. Abraham, Roy Clive. 1933.
  14. ^ "A dictionary of the Tiv language". Abraham, Roy C. 1968 [1940?].
  • R.C.Abraham, A Dictionary of the Tiv Language, Government of Nigeria 1940, republished by Gregg Press Ltd., Farnborough, Hants., England 1968.
    ISBN 0576116157

Religious materials

Tiv language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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