Friday, August 24, 2012
Next Batch of Corrupt Officials
Corruption is a common name in most if not all households within this geographical contraction called Nigeria. It originated from the Latin word ‘Corruptus’ meaning to abuse or destroy. So literarily, engaging in corruption is synonymous to abuse of whatever one is corrupting or destroying. Undoubtedly, everyone has in one way or the other experienced corruption. To this end therefore, Corruption has defiled one single meaning; it means different thing to different people, in different location and in different perspectives, but all possessing a common core of negative connotation. For example, in Philosophical, Theological or Moral discourses, corruption relates to spiritual or moral impurity. In the domain of Economy, it relates to the payment for services or materials which the recipient is not due. Politically, it involves dishonest behaviour or conduct in position of trust. Hence, embezzlement, dishonesty, extortion, misappropriation, nepotism, tribalism, bribery, rigging etc. are quintessential manifestation of corruption.
Interestingly, these are the varied ways in which people involve in corrupt practices. It is not limited to any group or institution even though there is a preponderance of it in the political class particularly in Nigeria. For instance, when ordinary citizens, so to speak, lie when they give testimony in court, it is corruption; when a judge declares the guilty innocent and the innocent guilty, it is corruption; when a police officer fabricate evidence in order to favour a particular person in return for money, it is corruption; when a doctor puts his patient in jeopardy for whatever reason, it is corruption; when an academic plagiarises, it is corruption. Also when pastors and imams lie to their followers in order to get respect or favour, it is corruption; when a teacher or lecturer demands sexual gratification to pass a student or when monetary demands are made on student before they pass their exams, it is corruption. The lists are endless; we can go on and on. All these exemplified the wide and multifarious range of corruption around the world in general and Nigeria in particular.
Every state deserves honest public and private officials who are guided by the principles of integrity and patriotism. The growth and development of any nation rest squarely on all, but most especially on public and private office holders who above any other thing put the interest of the country first in their daily routine. Most (if not all) developed societies are as a result of collective responsibility engineered by honest and patriotic leadership. To a large extend therefore; the quality of leadership in a particular country determines the level of development of that state. They provide the much needed enabling environment and infrastructure. Needless to say therefore, that leadership is like a spur that propels a nation forward.
With no intent of enjoying calling anyone names, anyone in full possession of his faculties will not dispute the fact that Nigeria’s leaders are a bunch of corrupt officials who are nothing but a conglomeration of political mistake and misrepresentation. That the problem of this country stems from the problem of leadership, is not just an act of proclamation; it is a fact. And that if corruption and all or most corrupt practices are eliminated, the country will have its lost glory restored, is also not just an assumption. Whatever mess this country has fallen into emanated from the very fact that Nigeria was not and is still not fortunate to be manned by upright people who understand the social contract that binds them with the electorate. The leadership is a horrific monster that devours what belongs to all. The magnitude of the qualms is grandiose as nothing is going well in the country from electricity to pipe-borne water, to employment, to road, to transportation, to education, to health, just name it; everything is in a state of limbo. Everything has been incapacitated by them so they can decide on almost everything that goes around. These characters can not even get one thing to be running efficiently; what a shame! And these are people that are supposed to uphold the dreams and aspirations of the people. They are expected to act in consonant with the deepest yearnings of the people that bestowed them with their mandate. Attention should have been directed toward what the people really want. However, much to their credit is the grossly mismanaged country that is left to be standing on one leg with heavy loads. Of cause, this is as a result of the series of batches of corrupt officials that find their way to public offices and wasted our human and natural resources and they are still wasting. Alhaji (Dr) Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan Masanin Kano explicitly captures the state of being in the Nigerian state when he asserts that ‘There is corruption in the system, frustration in the people and lack of creativity in the leadership who are suppose to exhibit honesty, integrity and tremendous sense of responsibility’.
One can not in all sincerity quantify the magnitude to which corruption has gripped the country. One requires a kind of revelation to discern the extend of corruption in Nigeria as introduced by the leadership and uphold by other public and private officials. No parastatal, ministry, company, industry (that’s if we have one), school and institution that is left out. Even market women and men are partners in progress. Churches and Mosque also share in it. The entire country is undermined and the problems keep piling-up with no easy solution in view. One can argue that whatever is given them the afflatus to engage in corruption is not unlikely to be symmetrically adjacent with greed, selfishness, and poor moral standards as well as zero consideration for others among other factors. It then baffles anyone with a sane mind to wonder why an innocent, rich and beautiful territory like Nigeria is hijacked by such strata of officials who are completely insensitive to the simplest yearnings of the general public. Indeed, this is a disgusting reality that lacks common sense.
The resultant effect of all these is that the country is jeopardized and left vulnerable to sustainable backwardness because the youths who are later going to ascend to those positions are corrupted by the leadership of today. Today, the average youth believes that he has to cheat in order to succeed. He believes that he has to bribe his way to the top. Integrity, diligence and patriotic zeal to the nation are not in the repertoire of what they believe. This implies that the emerging future leaders will end up constituting nothing but the next batch of corrupt public and private officials. The environment was highly subjected and is still being subjected to dishonest comportment, poor moral values and a primitive desire to amass more than enough for a very few. The youth are keenly watching and learning, this is why it is going to be like trekking from Lagos to Johannesburg to resist the craving temptation to act likewise. It hence becomes imperative that the future of the nation is secured by making concerted effort to properly guide the youth toward diligence, integrity and patriotism.
This country deserves leaders with good intention and patriotic enthusiasm; leaders who are driven by the desire to operate within the dictates of the rule of law and act for the interest of all. Otherwise, the country even in its ‘sorry status’ will continue to see nothing but more of setback. Our dare country can be liberated and taking to great height by her youth, but being at close proximity with corrupt leaders will make them acquire diabolical ideas that will corrupt their young souls to act dishonorably in office. For this reason our young up coming leaders should be allergic to any of such influences. They should look for good role-models with honest demeanours to help shape their thinking and actions. They should look else where (since the home front is corrupted) for inspiration and good leadership skills from leaders that will fumigate their minds with honest principles and patriotic zeal. I strongly believe that for the youth to be the kind of leaders Nigeria needs their mindsets require rehabilitation. What they think, how they think and what they believe are as important as Greece getting out of its financial crisis. Preparation toward a life of purpose and vision do not begin with what one has or can do, but with what one believes. A youth that believes in cheating will work with that mindset. A youth who believes he has to bribe his way to the top will operate within that frame work. Likewise, a youth who believes in commitment, integrity and diligence will live and conduct his affairs with that mentality. This is so because whatever one believes forms a kind of basic principle that guides the person’s conduct.
Time is more than ripe for the youth to get initiated into a life that will help them become great leaders of their followers. Every youth should have a good and positive opinion of him. One day in one way or the other the youth will have to take a decision that will either perpetuate the corruption culture or renounce it. Whichever the youth chooses will depend on what he believes. The youth are not only leaders of tomorrow, but of today because they lead their lives in the direction they want to follow. A youth who cannot lead himself right; cannot possibly lead others right. I believe we don’t require a seer to tell us that simply replacing the old leaders with new ones (as suggested by some people) will not amount to a necessary common sense action to get out of the unfortunate state because it is not about the old and the new; it is about the disposition of their mentality. If the new ones believe what the old ones believe and we merely substitute them, what have we done? It will mean that we just replace a lion with a hyena in a den of goats.
I raise my case.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Political Investment.
The term politics has a Greek origin, ‘politika’ meaning of citizens or relating to citizens. Largely the term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs. By virtue of this therefore, it is governmental affairs that necessitated the emergence and act of politics. Indeed what politics does is to facilitate the avenues through which intending public officers will obtain power in order to serve the state; in so doing it involves the people who are the major stakeholders in the democratic process into selecting candidates that will represent them in government. The people then become the only legal and genuine means through which candidates win election in a Democracy. By it self, Democracy is a system (meaning that it is not a haphazard or extemporaneous administrative methodology aimed at making a society free and fair. Rather, it is a well structured set of procedures that targets and focuses on attaining the wellbeing of the populace through conscious and concerted synergy. Everything within the set up is design and engineered to work by the people responsible) of managing human and material resources of a particular locale in the interest and benefit of all and ensures that majority of the people actively participate in decision making irrespective of their class, gender or religious inclination. This leads us into the fact that by theory (at least as far as Nigeria and other nations are concern) that Democracy is government of the people by the people and for the people. This Abraham Lincoln’s view of Democracy is yet to get a stand in our country because the mentality of our leaders from local to federal level is that as it is shown by George Orwell in his famous novel, Animal Farm in the speech of Snowball which declares that ‘all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.’ And therefore nullifies the free and fair and equal treatment of all within the system. Jose Belo Chipenda, General Secretary, All African Conference of Churches (AACC) said ‘Democracy is about a whole complex of rights and duties which citizens must exercise if a government is to be open, accountable and participatory.’ Indeed, free and fair and equal treatment of all is a right given by the constitution to all men and women.
At its inception, hopes were high to the level of crescendo that such social, economic and political qualms the country faced and still continues to face like poor electricity, unemployment, balance of payment disequilibrium, political apathy, water shortage and host of others will be ameliorated if not totally eradicated. However, things have gone worst today and we have the perpetuation of all these and the coming on board of others like the Boko-raham, Fuel Pump Price(FPP) aka fuel subsidy removal, outrageous fall of the education sector and increase depreciation in the standard of living. Today, more than 70% of Nigerians are set to live below $1 a day as reported by UN.
All these provide us with the notion that our democracy was not founded with people who believe in the tenets of democratic processes. Our leaders do not sincerely believe in it to serve as a platform for the articulation of diverse voices for the propagation of majority decisions in making and implementing policies. Rather, they believe in it to the extend that it will give them comparative advantage over others; they believe in it in so far as it will guarantee them certain social status, political power and economic stability for the victimization of their supposed foes. Their faith in democracy only rest on the believe that it will provide them with the avenue to enrich themselves with their kings and queens.
The resultant effect of all these is that the people are angry with the politicians and how they have succeeded in turning Democracy into something that only the rich enjoys. Indeed it may be factual to assert that Boko-raham is as a result of peoples’ agitation against the whole state of affairs in the country as induced by democratic governers. Every pain and suffering of the past has now tripled and so many jobless hands will join in unleashing terror to their mother land. Isn’t the right thing to do, but what do you called an idle mind? I only hope that things will not generate to what Thomas Hobbs describes as ‘a state of nature where life is brutish, nasty and short.’ The avoidance of this is the beginning of democratic intelligence that will lead the country to discover her glory.
In other democracies around the world, it is the people that decide who wins and who lose an election. Unfortunately, same thing can not be said of Nigeria. This role played by people in the political process has been replaced by money. The electorates no longer possess the power to bring a candidate to power, but money. This new status in a baby democracy like Nigeria’s is perilous and it threatens the fundamentals of the democratic processes.
It is with out doubt that politics of money has taken over Nigeria’s nascent democracy. Our political terrain has been turn to stock exchange. Credibility and integrity is no longer the requirement but money. It is large some of money that guarantees joining the political class as against credibility and integrity. Money is the name of the game; the true fuel that spurs the political system. Money is the motivation not service; money is the mobilizer and the aimed target. Remove the high financial benefit and the game is up for this political criminals.
The huge sum of money put into electioneering campaign by these dubious politicians is not directed towards honest desire to represent and work for the people, but towards return on investment. They see the money they put into the whole process as seed money. They connived to make politics a money making venture. Little wonder the country is still lacking behind in all areas of basic amenities.
Politics is now a class thing because the politicians have succeeded in monetizing it just like everything else in a capitalist state so much so that one is automatically excluded from it once he has little money or no money at all. Except of cause where one gets sponsored which does not easily come by.
It is a serious political tragedy brought about by the very people who are suppose to be the custodians of the country’s political system that politics have been subjected into the law of commodity exchange. You have little money or none at all; you are not in the scheme of things. The affairs of the state has now being turned to money whirling business enterprise by these politicians whose ulterior motive from inception was not to actually serve the state, but their concentric ambitions. Today Nigerian politics have been hijacked by self serving money bags who deprived Nigerians of decent living. They spray so much money on the political terrain to get to power and commit heinous crimes against the majority of the people.
In this regard I will like to talk about how The Independent National electoral commission (INEC) and the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) are partly responsible for this mess. INEC has outrageously place a heavy price tag on those seeking public office from local government councilor up to the president. Today, registration of candidates by INEC requires hundreds of thousands and millions of naira. With this kind of serious money being demanded from candidate they have their attention focused on how to retrieve their money plus interest once they get to office. They are not willing and ready to sacrifice so much in ‘vain’. A case that easily comes to mind is the Ngige and Chris Uba saggar. Chris Uba who is supposedly the sponsor of Ngige declares war on Ngige’s government because he feels that his monetary investments were being threaten. As long as huge monetary commitment is required by those who are willing to serve the people faithfully, the system will hardly be sanitize.
RMAFC on her part pours so much riches to political office holders even when majority of them are not contributing to nation building. Over 60% or so of the annual budget is allocated to public officers salaries. Politicians in Nigerian earn too much for doing too little or nothing, I mean they are over-paid for dosing up on duty. Without fear of contradiction, it is this substantial financial blessings that is causing this nightmare. Clearly, these characters operate by the principles of ‘cause and benefit analyses. With so much money to get including so much freedom to steal more and the inviting allowances here and there they do not mind spending anything to get to power. RMFC should as a matter of urgency have a downward review of the emoluments of public office holders. A lot of pressure and problems would have been done away with from the system. This will create the opportunity for honest people who are sincere in serving the people to come on-board. Or else we will continue to have the kind of corrupt and lazy money concern politicians who lack the initiative to do the simplest thing in office.
I believe you can remember the slogan, ‘bow and go’ in the senate during the ministerial nomination by David Mark. That is frankly annoying and it shows the level of indolence and lack of interest by the so called representatives to do what they are elected to do. They simply lack the questions to ask these ministerial nominees or what? Can you imagine this colossal national aberration! Compare this with how US senate drills their nominees. Hillary Clinton, former first lady and two times senator was nominated as foreign secretary of state, but you need to see how she was drill to the pops by the house as if they never knew her. Have the same situation in Nigeria and David Mark will declare immediately madam foreign secretary of state steps into the podium, ‘madam we know your records, you are one of us, we believe you will do your job well; so just take a ‘bow and go’.’ what a comedy! What an insult to the sensibility of our common intelligence! This should have being the opportunity to access her competence into her new responsibility. The responsibilities and duties of a senator certainly is not the same with that of a foreign secretary; it requires a completely different approach. Little wonder lots of square- pegs are always put in a round hole in this country.
Conclusively, there is need to divorce so much money from politics because having the two will always produce the twin brothers, corruption and poverty and our innocent country will be forced into perpetual impoverishment. The political immorality we see today is the product of their co-ordinated miscalculation and misappropriation! INEC and RMAFC should urgently redress their position on the state of things in the country’s polity so as not to continue to suffocate the arteries of true democratic order. Without doubt, the liberty given by Democracy is so as to benefit all and not some few people. The concept of freedom in a Democracy is such that an individual’s liberty ends where that of another begins. In other words, one’s right must be exercise in consideration of those of others. All these are geared toward the creation of ‘social good’ which is the product of co-ordinated intelligence. ‘Social good’ is in a way, the avoidance of misery to the accomplishment of happiness. And all human beings deserves happiness not some individuals. The foundation of Democracy in ancient Greek was to the accomplishment of this very fact. The Greek founded Democracy on the principles of patriotism, honesty, integrity, accountability and tremendous sense of responsibility. However, the Nigerian situation has taking another dimension contrary to what it is obtained from the founders. Alh. (Dr) Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan Masanin Kano captured it thus: ‘The syndrome of everybody for himself and God for us all, the devil takes the hindermost has relegated our natural responsibility of being our brothers keepers.’ If anything needs to be done is NOW. I raise my case.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
9th to 16th January 2012.
I stand staring,
The serene scenery of the sunlight vicinity.
So quiet, so quiet as if sacrilege being otherwise.
Is all her inhabitants in exodus?
Oh! What a mournful Monday morning!
Everything stands still, stands still: water supply, electricity,
Filing stations, markets, hospitals, transportation e.t.c.
Lonely streets breadthless, fruitless.
All that moves stock and stoic.
A proviso induced by unpopular policy,
For the leadership is insensitive.
All heads across the states hit the ceiling roof.
These angry agitated minds fused and start,
Firing on all cylinders to eliminate outrageous decision.
Here and there placards took over the sickly streets.
Hungry horrific fagged faces already bellicose,
Protesting the leaders adding of insult to injury.
From 9th to 16th January, this country came to an acatalectic halt.
Zillion of income was lost; so they say.
But who cares when not used for the boon of all.
Afterall it was a free fraud seven days!
Until their demands made, no going back, no work.
But like a bolt from the blue,
The front heads compromised their integrity and jeopardized all efforts.
So the seven days of doom dawn; no fruition; people disappointed.
The serene scenery of the sunlight vicinity.
So quiet, so quiet as if sacrilege being otherwise.
Is all her inhabitants in exodus?
Oh! What a mournful Monday morning!
Everything stands still, stands still: water supply, electricity,
Filing stations, markets, hospitals, transportation e.t.c.
Lonely streets breadthless, fruitless.
All that moves stock and stoic.
A proviso induced by unpopular policy,
For the leadership is insensitive.
All heads across the states hit the ceiling roof.
These angry agitated minds fused and start,
Firing on all cylinders to eliminate outrageous decision.
Here and there placards took over the sickly streets.
Hungry horrific fagged faces already bellicose,
Protesting the leaders adding of insult to injury.
From 9th to 16th January, this country came to an acatalectic halt.
Zillion of income was lost; so they say.
But who cares when not used for the boon of all.
Afterall it was a free fraud seven days!
Until their demands made, no going back, no work.
But like a bolt from the blue,
The front heads compromised their integrity and jeopardized all efforts.
So the seven days of doom dawn; no fruition; people disappointed.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Within the Capitalist World
The pleasures of the rich,
Is bought by the tears of the poor.
The wealth of the burgeoius,
Is acquired from the labour of the proletariat.
It is a relationship,
An assymetrical relationship; one of hierarchical order.
It is a world of social stratification,
One is on top, the other beneath.
A world of complete absense of equillibrum.
The weak/poor are subdued,
the strong/rich, the subdurers.
Everything depends on ones social strata.
All depends on who gets what.
Who owns what; who controls what and when.
It is a game of ownership,
Those who possess valuables make all decision.
Outstanding comportment does not count;
Money in its heterogenous manifestation matters, rules and chooses.
The rule of the game; join the winning team or get crushed.
The one with perspiration all over lives hand to mouth.
He toiled day and night like ants,
But goes to bed stomach lacuna.
Except bones of flesh covering a frustrated soul and a bitter mind,
Nothing else for his dedicated labour.
Equally he is dispensable.
The Capitalist cares less,
But perpetuates in amassing more and more,
With little or no exhaustion.
He screams in joyous attainment.
He hightens the goodness of his luxury,
And contemplates on the amplitude of his abundance.
Is bought by the tears of the poor.
The wealth of the burgeoius,
Is acquired from the labour of the proletariat.
It is a relationship,
An assymetrical relationship; one of hierarchical order.
It is a world of social stratification,
One is on top, the other beneath.
A world of complete absense of equillibrum.
The weak/poor are subdued,
the strong/rich, the subdurers.
Everything depends on ones social strata.
All depends on who gets what.
Who owns what; who controls what and when.
It is a game of ownership,
Those who possess valuables make all decision.
Outstanding comportment does not count;
Money in its heterogenous manifestation matters, rules and chooses.
The rule of the game; join the winning team or get crushed.
The one with perspiration all over lives hand to mouth.
He toiled day and night like ants,
But goes to bed stomach lacuna.
Except bones of flesh covering a frustrated soul and a bitter mind,
Nothing else for his dedicated labour.
Equally he is dispensable.
The Capitalist cares less,
But perpetuates in amassing more and more,
With little or no exhaustion.
He screams in joyous attainment.
He hightens the goodness of his luxury,
And contemplates on the amplitude of his abundance.
Friday, July 29, 2011
My collection of Poems
NINETEEN SIXTY.
October nineteen sixty,
A new dawn emerged, deep in the heart of Africa,
History in the making,
As green white green flag substitute the red white blue one.
Bright smiles Balewa, Nnamdi and Awolowo
Proudly gazed at the no mean attainment.
Our pride, our home, our heritage
The treasure of their selflessness
The capital of the world’s natural resources
Endowed with honorable, happy, industrious inhabitants
From the courage and bravery of our survival,
In a hostile, humanless slave trade and colonialism,
Come a nation standing optimistically gallant,
Keenly nurtured now matured for earnest task.
Paisanos evince no perfidious deportment.
Instead wrap ourselves in the flag.
It’s Nigeria at 50,
Let’s put the flags out.
NOBODY MADE USELESS.
Every has something valuable,
To transport him to fame and fortune.
Nobody made useless.
Everybody is priceless.
Yesterday may be senseless,
Strive to start making sense.
Develop your character, your gift,
You are design a winner.
You are of essence.
No one can deny it or take it.
Put courage to emerge stronger.
Embrace wisdom to evolve better.
Show the gift don’t shot it.
Dress it, don’t dry it.
Water it, nurture it, cheritsh it to prominence.
Never waste it.
It is yours to shine not to shatter.
Stay calm, don’t be cruel
Stay studious don’t be sluggish
You never become something doing nothing.
He is my Shepherd.
Work up, time showed six.
Reflect on yesterday nothing in life is fix.
Before anything, God comes first.
Evening comes he makes me rest.
Days open and close, the lord my fortress.
Is a life of industry, am rewarded with progress.
Nothing distressing.
Am physically, mentally fit.
Its God’s graciousness,
Not my greatness.
My knees on the ground,
My head bow,
Tears poured,
I am humbled,
The devil crumbled,
My faith kindled.
God, my infinite gratitude,
From my baptized attitude.
FULLY NAKED.
As if to attest to a claim of wholeness,
She appeared naked, fully rounded,
Exposing the naturallity of her ecstasy,
Stealing the show in every vicinity.
Clothing her nakedness seems rather shameful
Instead, nude she freezed in the nucleus of the firmament,
Tempting all visible eyes,
Pouring with reckless abandonment,
Her acatalectic lack of decency with,
A vehement vigour of aggression.
Her glary nude display was as oppressive,
As she appeared to be abusive.
Plenty perspiration glide our burned skins.
Chilled litres of waters we consumed to regulate temperature,
As if it was an adventure,
Water outlets appreciate their venture.
Every experience served a clarion call.
Awakening the consciousness of global warning.
Halt smothering these trees, putting them on flame.
Decease emitting unnecessary carbon dioxide.
Perhaps tomorrow the sun will be half naked,
And all burned skins rejuvenated and restored.
SLEEPING GIANT.
Africa! Why these glaring grieve in your countenance,
Massacring the joy of hopes, the peace of trying,
Emaciating and making you pregnable.
You must have forgotten you are primus inter pares
Standing firm like a minaret, indispensable among pares,
With diligent, intelligent, collaborative populace,
Massive unfathomable deposit of coltant, diamond, gold and petroleum.
Africa! Why these sorrows every season,
You must have forgotten you are the cradle of human civilization,
With gigantic array of colourful cultures and traditions,
Exceptional exquisite exhibition of flora and fauna.
The land of the great Plotinus, Aquinas, Ken saro wiwa, Ahmed Ben bella, Dedan Kimathi and Mandela.
The home of priceless pyramids, terra cotta,
The habitat of congo basin forest, Killimanjaro, Sahara desert and Nile.
If they are the stars, you are the sky.
If they are the rain, you are the cloud.
You are the heavenly store house of world’s glory,
Let go of your grief.
Embrace peace and utilize your endowment
My esprit de corps to Africa
ONE NOT TWO OR THREE.
One not two or three
One god
One world
One love
We are one large family
One not two or three
One moon
One sun
One sky
One experience
We have reasons to live as one
One not two or three
One life
One heart
One choice
Which could be wise or otherwise
We all have choice.
YET ANOTHER QUEUE.
Hollow, transparent green white green boxes,
Once again standing on duty,
Patiently waiting to be bulge,
With judicious ballots.
Eligible electorates enroll en mass.
Wear the crown of patriotism perform civic chore.
Relinquish all barriers,
Let us tied as broom,
Wipe out debris,
Make this nascent democracy live.
It is time for sincere serious minds and ready hands.
Time to diligently pick and choose,
Those we give this rare mandate.
A seldom privilege, don’t ruin it.
Ours is not to stand and stare,
Ours is to steer and shape history.
Independent commission, folks of caliber and cando,
Bend over backward, focus on the assignment,
Play by the rules.
This Herculean task in your palms,
Bravely ignore intimidation to sell sincerity,
Corrupt candidates will try to kiss arse,
Hit the nail on the head,
And give to each as given,
No inflation or deflation.
EVERY DAY LIFE.
As the cock crows, a new dawn is born,
Gradually the world begins to lose its serenity.
As the sun appears as if to assert itself,
The world is fully awake.
Legs and hands busy to fulfill dreams.
The sun dies, the illuminating moon conquers the night,
Yet breathing hearts still working.
Heads never resting, sweat still dripping
Eyes stern on screen dreams of varied sorts.
Keen spirits delving hungrily to acquire more.
Polished minds seeking development, adding more value,
Asphexiating circle of ignorance, incompetence, mediocrity, and low productivity.
Self development is self progression, is society’s growth.
Is standing shoulders high above the common crowd.
People come and go,
But our purpose is to leave better what we met.
SIMPLY PERFECT.
A purge sleek complexion,
Came in my direction,
Looks was a perfection
Ours eyes made connection.
Has a life that light my life up
A heart so pure, peaceful, a bright smile and radiant face,
This is astonishing beauty beaming!
The moon is bright, the sun is brighter, but you are the brightest.
I adore you!
No animus to spoil you,
I knew I want you
The first minute I saw you,
Lucky to have a lady as royal!
The things you show me,
The way you hold me,
Certainly mold me.
I promise you, forever your man.
No lying, in love with you bad!
Cos you are something I never had,
Something don’t want to lose.
Something I have to have,
A kind of love that last forever.
Feelings we share don’t need no correction.
Together, no one can cause love abduction,
I be your angel, you be my angel!
Our world full of joy and protection.
ONE MUST DIE FOR THE OTHER TO DINE.
Each survives at the expense of the other.
Life scotched in one to start in another,
One must go for the other to come.
Two contraries, separate locations.
The exist of one is the existence of another
Either dove or dog breathless.
One day, comes a time to decide,
Who to keep, who to kick,
The deacons or the demons,
Jesus or Judas, peace or pain,
One must die for the other to dine.
Which we choose can make or mar us.
One day, some way we are faced with such decision.
SHE IS MALARIA.
She is malaria.
It does not matter the area,
She does not consider class, gender or size,
She can fire anywhere at anybody.
Titchy blood sucker,
Encroacher of peaceful privacy,
Scrawny, hideous night disturber,
Of demonic demeanors.
She flies with a screech of brutality announcing her intrusion,
Other times quietly creep and subjugate her victims,
With a fatal bite of surplus injuries.
She is never done; she flies with her oppressive siren.
When at night her preys are taking quiescent,
She is up and devouring,
Her dawn is come,
Hungrily ramsacking for the warm blood,
Of her bloody survival.
Turning the night nightmare is her speciality.
Never underestimate her size,
She sends to comma, sometimes dead preys thousand times her size.
Where she lands, she bites, she inject and sucks, it itches,
Prey scratches, malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, dengue unleashed.
Mosquito is malaria.
October nineteen sixty,
A new dawn emerged, deep in the heart of Africa,
History in the making,
As green white green flag substitute the red white blue one.
Bright smiles Balewa, Nnamdi and Awolowo
Proudly gazed at the no mean attainment.
Our pride, our home, our heritage
The treasure of their selflessness
The capital of the world’s natural resources
Endowed with honorable, happy, industrious inhabitants
From the courage and bravery of our survival,
In a hostile, humanless slave trade and colonialism,
Come a nation standing optimistically gallant,
Keenly nurtured now matured for earnest task.
Paisanos evince no perfidious deportment.
Instead wrap ourselves in the flag.
It’s Nigeria at 50,
Let’s put the flags out.
NOBODY MADE USELESS.
Every has something valuable,
To transport him to fame and fortune.
Nobody made useless.
Everybody is priceless.
Yesterday may be senseless,
Strive to start making sense.
Develop your character, your gift,
You are design a winner.
You are of essence.
No one can deny it or take it.
Put courage to emerge stronger.
Embrace wisdom to evolve better.
Show the gift don’t shot it.
Dress it, don’t dry it.
Water it, nurture it, cheritsh it to prominence.
Never waste it.
It is yours to shine not to shatter.
Stay calm, don’t be cruel
Stay studious don’t be sluggish
You never become something doing nothing.
He is my Shepherd.
Work up, time showed six.
Reflect on yesterday nothing in life is fix.
Before anything, God comes first.
Evening comes he makes me rest.
Days open and close, the lord my fortress.
Is a life of industry, am rewarded with progress.
Nothing distressing.
Am physically, mentally fit.
Its God’s graciousness,
Not my greatness.
My knees on the ground,
My head bow,
Tears poured,
I am humbled,
The devil crumbled,
My faith kindled.
God, my infinite gratitude,
From my baptized attitude.
FULLY NAKED.
As if to attest to a claim of wholeness,
She appeared naked, fully rounded,
Exposing the naturallity of her ecstasy,
Stealing the show in every vicinity.
Clothing her nakedness seems rather shameful
Instead, nude she freezed in the nucleus of the firmament,
Tempting all visible eyes,
Pouring with reckless abandonment,
Her acatalectic lack of decency with,
A vehement vigour of aggression.
Her glary nude display was as oppressive,
As she appeared to be abusive.
Plenty perspiration glide our burned skins.
Chilled litres of waters we consumed to regulate temperature,
As if it was an adventure,
Water outlets appreciate their venture.
Every experience served a clarion call.
Awakening the consciousness of global warning.
Halt smothering these trees, putting them on flame.
Decease emitting unnecessary carbon dioxide.
Perhaps tomorrow the sun will be half naked,
And all burned skins rejuvenated and restored.
SLEEPING GIANT.
Africa! Why these glaring grieve in your countenance,
Massacring the joy of hopes, the peace of trying,
Emaciating and making you pregnable.
You must have forgotten you are primus inter pares
Standing firm like a minaret, indispensable among pares,
With diligent, intelligent, collaborative populace,
Massive unfathomable deposit of coltant, diamond, gold and petroleum.
Africa! Why these sorrows every season,
You must have forgotten you are the cradle of human civilization,
With gigantic array of colourful cultures and traditions,
Exceptional exquisite exhibition of flora and fauna.
The land of the great Plotinus, Aquinas, Ken saro wiwa, Ahmed Ben bella, Dedan Kimathi and Mandela.
The home of priceless pyramids, terra cotta,
The habitat of congo basin forest, Killimanjaro, Sahara desert and Nile.
If they are the stars, you are the sky.
If they are the rain, you are the cloud.
You are the heavenly store house of world’s glory,
Let go of your grief.
Embrace peace and utilize your endowment
My esprit de corps to Africa
ONE NOT TWO OR THREE.
One not two or three
One god
One world
One love
We are one large family
One not two or three
One moon
One sun
One sky
One experience
We have reasons to live as one
One not two or three
One life
One heart
One choice
Which could be wise or otherwise
We all have choice.
YET ANOTHER QUEUE.
Hollow, transparent green white green boxes,
Once again standing on duty,
Patiently waiting to be bulge,
With judicious ballots.
Eligible electorates enroll en mass.
Wear the crown of patriotism perform civic chore.
Relinquish all barriers,
Let us tied as broom,
Wipe out debris,
Make this nascent democracy live.
It is time for sincere serious minds and ready hands.
Time to diligently pick and choose,
Those we give this rare mandate.
A seldom privilege, don’t ruin it.
Ours is not to stand and stare,
Ours is to steer and shape history.
Independent commission, folks of caliber and cando,
Bend over backward, focus on the assignment,
Play by the rules.
This Herculean task in your palms,
Bravely ignore intimidation to sell sincerity,
Corrupt candidates will try to kiss arse,
Hit the nail on the head,
And give to each as given,
No inflation or deflation.
EVERY DAY LIFE.
As the cock crows, a new dawn is born,
Gradually the world begins to lose its serenity.
As the sun appears as if to assert itself,
The world is fully awake.
Legs and hands busy to fulfill dreams.
The sun dies, the illuminating moon conquers the night,
Yet breathing hearts still working.
Heads never resting, sweat still dripping
Eyes stern on screen dreams of varied sorts.
Keen spirits delving hungrily to acquire more.
Polished minds seeking development, adding more value,
Asphexiating circle of ignorance, incompetence, mediocrity, and low productivity.
Self development is self progression, is society’s growth.
Is standing shoulders high above the common crowd.
People come and go,
But our purpose is to leave better what we met.
SIMPLY PERFECT.
A purge sleek complexion,
Came in my direction,
Looks was a perfection
Ours eyes made connection.
Has a life that light my life up
A heart so pure, peaceful, a bright smile and radiant face,
This is astonishing beauty beaming!
The moon is bright, the sun is brighter, but you are the brightest.
I adore you!
No animus to spoil you,
I knew I want you
The first minute I saw you,
Lucky to have a lady as royal!
The things you show me,
The way you hold me,
Certainly mold me.
I promise you, forever your man.
No lying, in love with you bad!
Cos you are something I never had,
Something don’t want to lose.
Something I have to have,
A kind of love that last forever.
Feelings we share don’t need no correction.
Together, no one can cause love abduction,
I be your angel, you be my angel!
Our world full of joy and protection.
ONE MUST DIE FOR THE OTHER TO DINE.
Each survives at the expense of the other.
Life scotched in one to start in another,
One must go for the other to come.
Two contraries, separate locations.
The exist of one is the existence of another
Either dove or dog breathless.
One day, comes a time to decide,
Who to keep, who to kick,
The deacons or the demons,
Jesus or Judas, peace or pain,
One must die for the other to dine.
Which we choose can make or mar us.
One day, some way we are faced with such decision.
SHE IS MALARIA.
She is malaria.
It does not matter the area,
She does not consider class, gender or size,
She can fire anywhere at anybody.
Titchy blood sucker,
Encroacher of peaceful privacy,
Scrawny, hideous night disturber,
Of demonic demeanors.
She flies with a screech of brutality announcing her intrusion,
Other times quietly creep and subjugate her victims,
With a fatal bite of surplus injuries.
She is never done; she flies with her oppressive siren.
When at night her preys are taking quiescent,
She is up and devouring,
Her dawn is come,
Hungrily ramsacking for the warm blood,
Of her bloody survival.
Turning the night nightmare is her speciality.
Never underestimate her size,
She sends to comma, sometimes dead preys thousand times her size.
Where she lands, she bites, she inject and sucks, it itches,
Prey scratches, malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, dengue unleashed.
Mosquito is malaria.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
ON THE RELEVANCE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
It is a truism that language is one of the features that distinguishes human beings from animals. Language incontrovertibly relates to human activities and existence. It plays a significant function in aiding people to consummate their goals and aspirations. It therefore means that language is not just a mere pieces of words logically ordered to make comprehensible sound, it is a vehicle or an instrument that directs, informs, instructs, expresses, demonstrates and describes human thoughts, feelings, ideas, desires, and beliefs. Human beings cannot dispense with language.
Even though all languages are the same from linguistic perspectives, some languages like English are of greater importance and significance because of the rich and varied utility it has to people of different race and culture across the globe.
Wikipedia has it that “English language is one of the several West Germanic languages, a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages such as French, Portuguese and German. It originated from numerous dialects now collectively termed old English during the Angle Saxon era in the 5th century. ” This global language grew from a humble beginning to its present status of prestige in the universe. Columbia Encyclopedia says, “English is widely dispersed all over the world as a result of British exploration, colonialism and the growth of its empires from 17th through to the 19th century. It is also bolstered by the political, economic and military might of Britain and America. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia states that “English is the most widely spoken language in the world with an approximate population of 1.5 billion speakers and the mother tongue of above 350 million people”. Not even the Manderin Chinese can be at par with the global prevalence of the English language. This is because Chinese is less spoken outside the Chinese territory where as English is ubiquitous around the world as it transcends regional barriers, racial distinction, ethnic and social boundaries.
English studies as an academic discipline navigates through the territory of literature (whose eyes focuses on the society as its primary object of scrutiny) and linguistics, the scientific study of language which combines within its corpus of study, syntax, phonology, morphology, Semantics, pragmatics, stylistic, to mention but a few. It does not stop there it traverses honourably and responsibly into other fields and takes what it finds relevant to its domain and agglutinate them to its property. This basic fact stems from the verity that no field of study can successfully operate in isolation; the effectiveness of every discourse is in relation to other discourses. There is some sort of interdependence or mutual correspondence between them. It is this verisimilitude of the symbiotic relation existing among these various fields that bring about their dependence on language especially English language. This is because English language helps them communicate their essence and relevance. It is the instrument that ensures their sustainability and makes it possible for them to achieve maximum effect in their effort to be of significance within the scheme of things. The moment science makes new discovery it quickly runs to English language for comprehensive description, explanation and naming-without which it will be a useless object of valueless manifestation. Indeed that’s the language the historian, the philosopher, the psychologist, the mathematician, the biologists, the politician, the doctor utilises the more. This is factual because the preponderance of English language in the universe makes it the most utilized language of all academic activities without racial and geographic barrier.
In this contraption called Nigeria, the foundation of the educational system has been built around English language, so much so that today English is tantamount to literacy. Virtually all academic activities are conducted in English language from the pedagogy to the pedagogical paraphernalia. Be it in the sciences or the Arts. English language is the channel, the medium and the means of instruction and students are expected to write their assignments, tests and examinations in it except where they are dealing with another language as subject. Failure to do so will result to serious penalty. The required pass mark comes from using English to say the answer and whether the answer is right or wrong depends on how English is used to say the answer. Success in Education means success in English language as far as Nigeria is concern.
There is no institution public or private such as government ministries and parastatals, banks, companies, military and paramilitary organizations, N.G.O’s that do not require the services of a linguist. This is because of the serious implications of using language in formal documents, correspondences and transactions. Others may be able to speak the language fluently, but they cannot analyze it. It is the linguist who detects such fundamental errors and fashions out a carefully written and detailed language with clarity. At any given time, a true English student can confidently and properly speak or write to audience home or abroad with the accuracy and intelligibility of academic excellence. He/she is an abode or repository of creativity, hard work, discipline and good work.
Students of English hence have a lot of opportunities to explore after their studies apart from the noble and enriching occupation of teaching and journalism. They can even choose to be translators, authors, public speakers, speech writers to presidents, governors, ministers and members of house of assembly both Federal and State. And of course, they could become presidents, governors, ministers, Legislators and chief executive officers, CEO’s of companies or enterprises. For example, the Commonwealth and Caine Prize award winner Helon Habila read English. One time, Plateau State House of Assembly, Hon. Isa Chungwom Song read English. Also Mr. Manok James read English and is now the Director of Press Affairs Government House Jos. Mrs. Ramnap Joyce Lohya read English and is a member Plateau House of Assembly and a Deputy Chief Whip.
At the end of the four years rigorous study, the English student comes out as a full baked graduate of international delivery having gone through the intense study of the language, to the mathematical operations of syntax and morphology, to the philosophical discourses of literary criticism/theories and semantics, to the psychology of psycholinguistics, to the sociology of socio-linguistics and to the history of literature. The graduates’ purview is not for the indolent, uncreative, unimaginative and indiscipline student. He/she is an embodiment of true academic excellence.
Conclusively, English language as an academic field or discipline engages its students to wide range of intellectual probing inquiries that shapes, develops and transmits them as ambassadors of not only the field, but of the institution and society they emanate from. Contrary to wide held believe among other students especially those in the sciences that students of English do nothing serious and at the end of the day have no substantial contribution to the general development of the society is a grandiose fallacy that is expose from the reservoir of ignorance of such students. As had been shown above, students of English are everything that the modern society needs from the university graduates.
Even though all languages are the same from linguistic perspectives, some languages like English are of greater importance and significance because of the rich and varied utility it has to people of different race and culture across the globe.
Wikipedia has it that “English language is one of the several West Germanic languages, a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages such as French, Portuguese and German. It originated from numerous dialects now collectively termed old English during the Angle Saxon era in the 5th century. ” This global language grew from a humble beginning to its present status of prestige in the universe. Columbia Encyclopedia says, “English is widely dispersed all over the world as a result of British exploration, colonialism and the growth of its empires from 17th through to the 19th century. It is also bolstered by the political, economic and military might of Britain and America. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia states that “English is the most widely spoken language in the world with an approximate population of 1.5 billion speakers and the mother tongue of above 350 million people”. Not even the Manderin Chinese can be at par with the global prevalence of the English language. This is because Chinese is less spoken outside the Chinese territory where as English is ubiquitous around the world as it transcends regional barriers, racial distinction, ethnic and social boundaries.
English studies as an academic discipline navigates through the territory of literature (whose eyes focuses on the society as its primary object of scrutiny) and linguistics, the scientific study of language which combines within its corpus of study, syntax, phonology, morphology, Semantics, pragmatics, stylistic, to mention but a few. It does not stop there it traverses honourably and responsibly into other fields and takes what it finds relevant to its domain and agglutinate them to its property. This basic fact stems from the verity that no field of study can successfully operate in isolation; the effectiveness of every discourse is in relation to other discourses. There is some sort of interdependence or mutual correspondence between them. It is this verisimilitude of the symbiotic relation existing among these various fields that bring about their dependence on language especially English language. This is because English language helps them communicate their essence and relevance. It is the instrument that ensures their sustainability and makes it possible for them to achieve maximum effect in their effort to be of significance within the scheme of things. The moment science makes new discovery it quickly runs to English language for comprehensive description, explanation and naming-without which it will be a useless object of valueless manifestation. Indeed that’s the language the historian, the philosopher, the psychologist, the mathematician, the biologists, the politician, the doctor utilises the more. This is factual because the preponderance of English language in the universe makes it the most utilized language of all academic activities without racial and geographic barrier.
In this contraption called Nigeria, the foundation of the educational system has been built around English language, so much so that today English is tantamount to literacy. Virtually all academic activities are conducted in English language from the pedagogy to the pedagogical paraphernalia. Be it in the sciences or the Arts. English language is the channel, the medium and the means of instruction and students are expected to write their assignments, tests and examinations in it except where they are dealing with another language as subject. Failure to do so will result to serious penalty. The required pass mark comes from using English to say the answer and whether the answer is right or wrong depends on how English is used to say the answer. Success in Education means success in English language as far as Nigeria is concern.
There is no institution public or private such as government ministries and parastatals, banks, companies, military and paramilitary organizations, N.G.O’s that do not require the services of a linguist. This is because of the serious implications of using language in formal documents, correspondences and transactions. Others may be able to speak the language fluently, but they cannot analyze it. It is the linguist who detects such fundamental errors and fashions out a carefully written and detailed language with clarity. At any given time, a true English student can confidently and properly speak or write to audience home or abroad with the accuracy and intelligibility of academic excellence. He/she is an abode or repository of creativity, hard work, discipline and good work.
Students of English hence have a lot of opportunities to explore after their studies apart from the noble and enriching occupation of teaching and journalism. They can even choose to be translators, authors, public speakers, speech writers to presidents, governors, ministers and members of house of assembly both Federal and State. And of course, they could become presidents, governors, ministers, Legislators and chief executive officers, CEO’s of companies or enterprises. For example, the Commonwealth and Caine Prize award winner Helon Habila read English. One time, Plateau State House of Assembly, Hon. Isa Chungwom Song read English. Also Mr. Manok James read English and is now the Director of Press Affairs Government House Jos. Mrs. Ramnap Joyce Lohya read English and is a member Plateau House of Assembly and a Deputy Chief Whip.
At the end of the four years rigorous study, the English student comes out as a full baked graduate of international delivery having gone through the intense study of the language, to the mathematical operations of syntax and morphology, to the philosophical discourses of literary criticism/theories and semantics, to the psychology of psycholinguistics, to the sociology of socio-linguistics and to the history of literature. The graduates’ purview is not for the indolent, uncreative, unimaginative and indiscipline student. He/she is an embodiment of true academic excellence.
Conclusively, English language as an academic field or discipline engages its students to wide range of intellectual probing inquiries that shapes, develops and transmits them as ambassadors of not only the field, but of the institution and society they emanate from. Contrary to wide held believe among other students especially those in the sciences that students of English do nothing serious and at the end of the day have no substantial contribution to the general development of the society is a grandiose fallacy that is expose from the reservoir of ignorance of such students. As had been shown above, students of English are everything that the modern society needs from the university graduates.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION OF CHAM
Chapter One
Introduction:
Language documentation is the process of recording through writing or other forms the history, linguistic property and other peculiar information about a language spoken by a given speech community for the sake of posterity and revitalization. This kind of exercise “plays an important role in maintaining and revitalizing a language, helps in training native speakers as language teachers and writers and leads to future research” (Juliette: 2007). It provides the foundation on which linguistic analysis can be made from a citable set of materials in the language.
Unless a language is documented it can not be develop and when a language does not have the privilege of being documented and developed through conscious and concerted efforts of the language speakers or any other person or group of persons so interested in such a noble course, the language may be gradually given up In favour of more prestigious languages and with time it may be forgotten completely. These described the situation with the language, Cham as fewer people who are sons and daughters of this enthralling language speak it. Children as well as adults find it difficult if not impossible to read and write in the language. They abandoned it for the more prestigious languages like English and Hausa. It is obvious that Cham needs to be rescued from going into extinction. This dissertation is an attempt in that direction to contribute to the few literatures written mostly in this form to revitalize, develop and propagate the language.
BRIEF HISTORY OF CHAM AND HER PEOPLE
Cham is a small minority ethnic group found in Balanga local government area of Gombe state along Yola road, south of the state and Numan local government area of Adamawa state. Originally, ‘Cham’ is known as ‘Chum’ meaning brother. However, as a result of wrong pronunciation by the traders and neighboring tribes who find it difficult to pronounce ‘Chum’ correctly, instead pronounced it as ‘Cham’ which now becomes widely used”(Albashi: 1990).
According to Hassan Tom Firi quoted by Albashi (1990), the people of Cham migrated from Yamel in the east with some tribes like Lunguda, Tula, and Dadiya at about 1777. They came to Africa through Egypt and setlled at Wanda. As a result of poor agricultural land, bad climate and weather, the people of Cham being good agriculturalists decided to move from Wanda to a free and fertile land at Fitilai (Kuntur) in 1797. At Fitilai, Baba Dan Bulo, an informant said, “the people of Cham settled in groups according to their clans. In this small clans, ther is a type of disperse, cross or integrated relationship which is showed by ties of reputed kingship, chieftaincy and religious complexities. Major among these settlements were Fitilai to Bwelimi, and Fitilai to Dijimi, out of which the following small clans emerged: Jabe, Bwelimi, Kwasim, Lebe, Dungurang and Tiksir. These clans believed in peace and have a special love and care for one another and therefore regard themselves as brothers (Shete) plural of Chum, brother”.
According to another informant, Nurudin A.A., what precipitated the movement from Fitilai to Bwelimi and from Fitilai to Dijimi is conflict. He stated, “the movements marked the beginning of dialectal variation: one had settled at Mwona that is Bwelimi and the other at Tiksir which is kindiyo. These two have extended their territory to Bachama land in Adamawa state known as green village in Numan local government and Monatari in Lamurde local government. They finally settled in Kindiyo, Mwona present day Cham district in 1880”.
Cham people are majorly farmers, however today, they are found in virtually every sphere of public and private businesses. Traditionally, they are animists and ancestralogists, but in recent times, many of them have embraced Christianity and Islam.
“Apart from being a name of a tribe, Cham is also the name of one of the towns of the tribe. To the east, Cham is bounded by Lunguda. To the north, by Bachama and Pere. To the west by Waja and to the south by Tula and Dadiya tribes respectively. Cham is made up of many villages: Loja, Bwelimi, Dongaje, Kutare, Kwarge, Kuntur, Yolde, Kwasi, Lebe, Tiksir and Yadi to mention but a few. Cham people also refer to themselves as ‘Dijim’, a plural form of ‘Nidiji’ which connotes something that appeared or come out of the earth’s deep roots which can not be overcome”(Albashi, 1990).
LANGUAGE FAMILY.
(Greenberg: 1963) classified African languages into four language phyla: “Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan and Niger-Congo”. Out of these four and according to Ethnologue.com, Cham appertains to the Niger-Congo group which has according to (Encarta: 2009) an estimated 300 to 400 million speakers across West Africa and Central African Republic.
CHAM DIALECTS
According to these informants, mr and mrs Maila Odah. There are three mutually intelligible dialects in Cham language: Mwona dialect, Loja dialect and Cham dialect. These dialectal variations came as a result of migration. Generally, dialect describes a language variety where a user’s regional or social background appears in his/her accent, use of vocabulary and grammar; the dialects of Cham is not exception, but do not constitute a barrier for comprehension as there is mutual understanding despite the distinction in lexical items, phonology and syntax.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Cham language is no longer actively spoken by the younger members of the language community and very little literatures were written in or about the language. These situations are not favourable to an endangered language like Cham. If this language must survive, then there is the need to document it so that it can be revitalized and developed. The Cham Language and Bible Translation Committee state that “children from Cham or with Cham origin are not able to speak the language; they are not able to read and write in it. Instead, they use English and Hausa. This is indeed a precarious circumstance that threatens not only the survival of the language, but the rich cultural heritage and traditional values of the people. It is in this respect therefore, that the researcher attempts the documentation of some aspects of the Cham language.
SCOPE AND LIMITATION
This research investigation is limited to the linguistic items or vocabularies of Cham, Cham sound systems and basic sentence structure. The grounds covered by these sets carefully scrutinized vocabularies are words associated with the following domains: Wild Animals, domestic Animals, Bee-keeping, Fishing-Hunting-weapons, Horse and Equipments, Plants, Trees, Agriculture, Compound, Kitchen, Food, Brewery, Clothes and Jewelry, Weaving and Dyeing, Plaiting and Basketry, Leather work and Leather goods, Metal-working, Pottery, Wood-working, Market, Human being and Kinship Terms, Government and Law, Music, Dance and Play, Religion, Disease, Time and Reason, Environment and Finally Numbers.
These words are given side by side their English counterparts to facilitate the meaning behind each word.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This dissertation aims to attain the following:
1. The documentation of some aspect of the Cham Language for posterity and revitalization.
2. To contribute to the development of the Language.
3. To make effort toward making sure it does not become a victim of extinction.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Every language carries with it, the traditional values, norms and cultural heritage of the people. It is a marker of identity that gives a people a sense of belonging in the world. When this language goes into extinction, the peoples’ culture and traditions will also vanish with it because it is embodied in it. At the end, it becomes impossible to trace the existence of this group of people. Drawing from this perspective therefore, the significance of this long essay is the preservation of the language, culture and tradition of the people of Cham, a part or segment of human existence. It will also contribute to the body of human language especially linguistics by showcasing the unique and rich linguistic property of a language hitherto unknown.
METHODOLOGY
For the purpose of this project, the researcher made used of two methods for the collection of data. These are: Oral interview and questionnaire. The oral interview was to aid easy flow of communication between the researcher and the aged persons who are unable to read the questionnaire. It was also considered that using the questionnaire method only will not give sufficient coverage hence the need to combine the two methods. After the collation, the data are carefully analyzed by presenting them in their sub-group along side their English translation.
Chapter Two
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION:
This chapter attempts to review relevant literatures that are related to endangered languages and language documentation. Nonetheless, before going any further, it is imperative to know what a language is. Language is the repository of the culture, norm and ideology of a people and it serves as the means of transmitting knowledge from generation to generation. Austin (2008: pp 4) says, “Each language expresses the history, culture, society and identity of the people who speak it and each is a unique way of talking about the world”. “All languages have developed to express the needs of their users and in a sense all languages are equal” (Crystal: 1987, pp 91). Once man is without language, he is fundamentally reduced from his elevated position of a human being.
Sadly, some languages are not able to live-up to those responsibilities or functions not because they are intrinsically deficient, but because the language speakers failed to engage it into its full utility. This circumstance is peculiar to series of languages around the globe that heavily encroach on their potency. Thus, these languages start fading away gradually into oblivion.
ENDANGERED LANGUAGE
According to Unesco’s Adhoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages, “a situation where speakers of a language cease to use the language, instead use I in increasingly reduced number of communicative and ceased to pass it from one generation to the next constitute language endangerment” (2003: par, 2). Anthony Woodbury (2006: par, 2) is of the notion that “an endangered language is one that is likely to become extinct in the near future. Many languages are failing out of use and are being replaced by others that are more widely used in the region or nation”. Wikipedia the free encyclopedia on its part sees endangered language as “a language that is at risk of failing out of use. When a language is not spoken or learned by children, then that language is endangered” (par, 1). For Philipp Strazny (2005: pp, 212) endangered language or what he calls ‘language attrition’ is “the situation where the native language is used in increasingly fewer domains with few functions such as at home, with friends, and at social events”.
Linguists as stated by Whalen and Harrison (2000: par, 7, 8 & 9) divided languages into three categories: Healthy, Endangered and Extinct. A healthy language they say is “one that is currently being learned by children as a first language. Healthy languages are generally used in all works of life; at home, in school, at work, and in other private and public settings. Endangered language is further divided into various levels of endangerment. In the first level of endangerment in which language is still considered healthy, the percentage of children who speak the language typically falls below the percentage of the adults who speak the language. If parents stop or are forced to stop teaching their children their native language, the language may become severely endangered. The most endangered languages are called Moribund. A moribund language still has native speakers, but it is not being learned by children; often, just a few elderly speakers remained. An extinct Language on the other hand is one with no living native speakers”.
Following the above classification, Cham language appertains to the moribund class. This position is based on the fact that children no longer learn the language; there are just a handful of elderly and adult speakers. Cham as a language has unfortunately fallen into this precarious situation which threatens not only the survival, security, and existence of the language, but also the global linguistic canon and world’s cultural diversity. What precipitated this condition is the long years or period of neglect combined with the exclusive used of Hausa and English for conducting their daily activities in school, politics, business/trading, religious worship and social events. Indeed, there is also the spread of the mass media that brought an insidious new threat on it. To day even the remotest house in Cham has either a radio or television or both. The language often utilized in these media from morning to evening is Hausa and/or English. This by it self has a psychological effect on the children and adults who will graciously imbibe it as the language of prestige and of the elite which they home to reach.
Crucial to all the views aforementioned are:
The limited use of the language by its speakers in their daily activities.
The language’s operative competence is restricted to fewer domains such as ceremonial and formal functions.
The language is not transmitted to younger generation.
A Unesco report (1993) has it that half of the approximated 6700 languages spoken today are in danger of disappearing before the century ends. In 1992, another Unesco report states that “the International Congress of Linguist (CIPL) meeting in Quebec Canada discussed the topic of endangered languages as a result of which it formed the endangered language committee under the authority of Unesco. In 1993 this committee came up with “The Red Book of Endangered Languages”, which was published by Unesco and contained a comprehensive lists of the world’s languages currently facing extinction and endangerment. Hundreds and thousands of languages facing extinction and endangerment are reported in this Red Book of Endangered Languages. Some of these endangered languages in Nigeria include: Bassa, Kontagora, Bete, Fali of Baissa, Defaka, Kiong, Kuducamo, Labir,Lere, Lufu,Luri, Njerep, Odut, Putai, Rono and many others. Whalen and Harrison (2000) also reported that “as the new millennium comes to a close more than 6000 distinct human languages are in used world wide. Many linguists predict that the year 2100, only half of the languages will be spoken, a lost of one language every twelve days”.
Linguist, M. Krauss (2007) argues that for a language to survive it needs at least 100,000 speakers. Krauss view puts emphasis on just the number of speakers that are available to speak the language. However, this can not provide us with sufficient assurance. For example, linguist, L.R. Storto (2003) who worked on endangered languages in Brazil says that “the ‘Karitiana’ language in Brazil has only 185 speakers out of a total population of 191. Even though 185 is not a large number, Karitiana speakers both young and old make up 96% of the population of the community. Yet, the language is not endangered because there is transmission and active usage of the language by the younger generation. At the other extreme end, Yiddish, the international language of the Jews from Central to Eastern Europe until the middle of the 20th century, with around 3 million speakers is considered by linguists as an endangered language. This is as a result of its similitude position with Cham language with many elderly speakers with no children learners or the language is not transmitted to the younger generation. Austin (2008: par, 2) points out to this truism when he says that “in order to judge if a language is endangered, the number of the speakers is less important, what is important is its transmission to younger generation”.
The implication of all these is that adults and children are a veritable medium that provide the safest way of promoting, sustaining and propagating a language. Nonetheless, as Philipp (2005: par, 2) states, “language vitality is ranked in terms of number and generations of speakers”. It is this that Crystal (1987: 281) meant when he posits that “for a language to count as living, there obviously have to be active speakers alive who use it. Therefore, simply counting the number of speakers is not the best way to decide if a language will survive or not. Rather, the vitality of a language depends on how well a language is transmitted to younger generation”.
REASONS BEHIND LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT
The causes of language endangerment are complex and vary with individual situations. In Cham territories for example, the primary cause is language shift, a situation where speakers of a language cease to speak their native or local language in favour of the language that is perceived to be the most influential culture politically, socially and economically. The situation usually comes into being when there are no such values or prestige attached to the local or heritage language. In most cases Philipp (2005: 286) says, “Such a shift can occur over a number of generations; the oldest generation, the grand parents speak the heritage language as their first and primary language. The middle generation has some knowledge about the local language, but uses the dominant/influential language primarily, and the younger generation has little or no knowledge of the local language and may at most know a few words or phrases”.
This state of affairs has greatly reduced the performative abilities of such languages like Cham; thereby, forcing them to play a second fiddle in an environment where Hausa and English are becoming the order of the day
Accordingly, Crystal (1987: 111) remarks that “economic prospects attract younger members of a community away from the villages; so also educational pursued. Inevitably, circumstance will create the motive for them to start using the language of their new environment”. This idea of adapting to the language of ones new environment is inevitable according to Melting Pot Theory. One can further buttress this point by looking at Nigeria’s Home Movies which only show young men and women progressing after they desert their villages for the city centre. This is sending wrong signals to the youths. Austin (2008, par, 1) “This quest for human progress which they (the community people) feel they can not locate in their local language drive them away from their major essence and means of universal identity to what they feel can provide them with the much craved progress”. This is what Philipp (2005: 287) meant by saying that “members of a language community often believed that knowledge of the dominant language like Hausa in the North and Pidgin in the south is a necessary tool for success in the dominant culture and that knowledge of the heritage language is a hindrance to socio-economic advancement”. It is a common phenomenon today that people only tend to speak languages that are socially and economically useful. Anything contrary they look at it as a waste of time.
The situation is further compounded as local celebrities are themselves not encouraging the younger ones to speak in their local languages; instead they speak Hausa, Pidgin or English depending on their regional orientation. This situation should not be slightly considered because these celebrities are a major influence to the younger ones.
In addition, parents sometimes don’t encourage their children by teaching them their local language. In this case, the child is left with no option but to learn the language readily available to him at his disposal in school, in the street, at church or mosque and on the radio or television. This breached in generation to generation transmission of the local language seriously jeopardize its existence.
LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION
Because a society’s history and culture is contained in its language and because as a language disappears, it carries with it everything that is contained within it, it becomes crucial that conscious effort is make to prevent a situation where the major essence of human, dignity, pride and identity is completely lost without trace. Trask (1995: 207) declares this fact when he says “the most obvious outward sign of our identity is our language”. Whalen and Harrison (2000, par, 17) also note that “important clues to human history are buried in language”. If so, it is therefore essential that languages are put in black and white to eschew such situations where they die alongside what they carry in them.
“One response to language endangerment has been the creation of a new discipline within linguistics called Language Documentation (or Linguistic Documentation). It is often said to have been catalyzed Nikolaus P. Himmeimanne” (the Hans, par, 2). Nikolaus wrote in his book, Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics (1998: 166) that “the aim of a language documentation is to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speech community…This…differs fundamentally from language description which aims at the record of language as a system of abstract elements, construction and rules”. The Unesco’s Adhoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages (2003, par, 4)looks at language documentation as “the process by which a language is documented in terms of its grammar, its lexicon and in terms of its oral traditions(stories, songs and religious texts)”. On its part, Wikipedia states that “once a language is determined to be endangered, there are two basic steps that need to be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first Wikipedia claims is language documentation which is the process by which a language is documented in terms of its grammar, vocabulary and oral traditions like tales and riddles. The second is language revitalization which means that a language community through political, community and educational means attempts to increase the number of active speakers of the endangered language. This process, Wikipedia further states is termed language revival or reversing language shift.
To Lehmann (2001) quoted by Sascha (2007, par, 2) says language documentation “is part of the overall documentation of a culture or as part of the comprehensive presentation of a language”. Himmelmann (1998) also quoted by Sascha views language documentation as an independent field of research for linguistic and linguistic anthropology which focuses on the collection of primary data (language data) with special emphasis on endangered languages. To Sascha (2007) “the term is geared towards gathering an amount of data that is representative of the linguistic system of a language as a whole”.
Finally, language documentation is a conscious attempt undertaking to write down the linguistic property of a language in order to keep it safe from being lost and for posterity.
Language endangerment on its part is a highly dangerous phenomenon that could happen to a language. It shrinks and renders a language invalid, incapacitated and inactive; thereby forcing it to loose effectiveness. It is necessary and a matter of urgency that such a language is documented to ensure its continuous survival.
Chapter Three
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
This section presents the data collected in the field. They comprise of linguistic items or words from different fields and areas of study. They are given side-by-side their English translation. This chapter also contains the vowels and consonants description of Cham as well as the Cham basic sentence structures. The first word in each line is in Cham followed by its English translation.
WILD ANIMALS:
Namte - Animal
Namte se - Wild animal
Kullon - Crocodile
Namwalai - Hippopotamus
Namriguwon - Antelope
Pyau - Gazelle
Grima se - Buffalo
Korose - Giraffe
Namkiya - Wart-hog
Fun - Baboon
Fun - Monkey
Fun - Chimpanzee
Tu - Cobra
Kweram - Python
Dullon - Squirrel
Tu - Mouse
Tu - Rat
Gum or Killeya - Owl
Ta or Turitifi - Porcupine
Babuwe - Rabbit
Babuwe - Hare
Ta - Hedgehog
Jinijirti - Wild cat
Namkiya - Leopard
Gano - Elephant
Muglo - Dove
Turum or Dumbo - Lion
Nam ribirsan - Jackal
So - Snake
Grissinte - Viper
Buntar - Lizard
Bwilin bwilin - Agama Lizard
Guba gubari - Gecko
Sala - Monitor
Semi semi - Chameleon
Gantan - Crab
Chunboi - Frog
Bete chumboi - Toad
Kirga - Snail
Gurya yili - Tortoise
Laate - Fish
Dasar - Mudfish or cat fish
Kille - Bird
Kaita kille - Nest
Kille kwiwi - Cattle egret
Kille kuse - Crested crane
Kwakwa - crow
Kille gimi - Duck
Kolon kase - bush fowl
Weser - Falon
Weser - Kite
Jelburin - Vulture
Nam walai - Ostrich
Sengsengyi - Bat
Minte sutti - (big black)ant
Minte kwiyu - (red)ant
Mimi - ant
Minte - (small black) ant
Buri - Termite
Buri - Ant-hill
Suru da burin - Termite pile
Dugor - Insect
Yi - Fly
Mimi - Mosquito
Lauri - Tsetsefly
Bulo bulogi - Butterfly
Gulgo waniyu - Caterpillar
Gulgo - Worm
Dugor - Bug
Kilgunte - Louse
Lauri - Flea
Kutiri - Tick
Kitakeri - Cricket
Lingate - Grashopper
Lingate - Locust
Lirinte - Spider
Yuglon - Mantis
Teeri - Scorpion
Te – Sting (bee, ant,scorpion)
DOMESTIC ANIMALS
Namta kai - Domestic animal
Namta chuwi - Female animal
Namta wubari - Male animal
Joi - Dog
Tu - cat
Tinga - Cattle
Gumtul - Bull
Befuri - Ox
Betinga - Calf
Koro - Donkey
Bi - Goat
Bi wuchiwe - She-goat
Gumbar - He-goat
Bebi - Kid
Ma - Sheep
Ma - ewe
Bugtor - Ram
Yiri - Pig
Yiri chiwe - Sow
Yinti kasi - Enclosure
Yiwa gimi - Water place
Damur - Stick
Yawi - Chicken
Kolong - Cock
Chul - Guinea-fowl
Klekai - Domestic pigeon
Nam - Meat
Jum - Horn
Winang - Tail
Dungar - egg
Fumni - Wing
Fumwakle - feather
Bote ta biti - Dung
Mugte or Ju - Kill
Kli - Bite
Kummarang – Ruminate
Buwon - Give birth
Totan - herd
Kusam - Milk
Buwong - Call
Musaran wa bite - Tame animals
Ka - Drive away
Gum naji - Fly
Mua - Jump
BEE KEEPING
Yite - Bee
Ni ti yite - Apiaristor bee keeper
Mumangteor Kaita yite - Apiary or bee house
Gimi yite - Honey
Munda Yite - Honeycomb
Kurgaran ka yite - Swarm of bees
FISHING, HUNT, WEAPONS
Yogi wa lati - Fishing net
Kublon - Hook/fishtrap
Ni tuwa lati - Fishman
Duwi - Hunt
Ni tari namti - Hunter
Na - Footprint
Jinia kuni - Weapon
Bak - arrow
He - water
Kun - War
Kwelam - warriors
Nub - people
Kublon - Bow
Dun - Quiver
Ya - Spear
Dunbo - Sword
Lagu - Dagger
Lagu - knife
Te lagu - Throwing knife
Gum - Club
Gursa - Gun
Finjila - Sling
Bwigate - Combat
Kun - Attack
Kursa - Dress of a warrior
Kursa - Armour
Kursa - Shield
Dala kuni - Helmet
Kwelum ba kunum - Warriors
Fun risik - Chase
Te - shoot
Bau - hit
Mau wer - Throw stone
Mau ya - Throw spear
Kur - stab
Mai atum - Over power
HORSE AND EQUIPTMENT
Mungor - Horse
Be mungor - Stallion
Dukka mungor - Bit
Jini dukka mungor - Bridle
Dukka mungor - Stirrup
Gu chiri - Saddle
Sa guchiri - Saddle bag
Umbi-Riding - whip
Lubrite-Riding - boots
Jinia mungor - Harness
Filin damungor - Flag
Filin da mungor - Banner
Ya - Lance
Ni mungor - Horseman
Gwi - Ride
PLANTS
Se - Bush
Lagar - Forest
Yir - Grass
Riank - Tree
Riank - Wood
Haki - Branch
Bwi-riank - Trunk
Sagari - root
Wula ka riank - Bark
Wang - Leaf
Filin da riank - Flower
Beta riank - Fruit
Tuk - Thorn
Jam - Grain
Namta yawi - Mushroom
Lumte - Marrow
Chulun da ni kwiwi - Pawpaw
Jini lumanyi - Orange
Mukrimuk - Lemon
Gulum - Groundnut
Gungoji - Bambaranut
Beta riank kadikadin - Kolanut
Riank ka chulu - Banana
Klanyi - Beans
Kusante - Garden egg
Laatum - Onion
Chulun - Pumpkin
Jini chulu - Melon/watermelon
Yute - Yam
Yin - Broom
Jam - Guinea corn
Jam - Millet
Jam – Late millet
Butali - Maize
Kurgote - Okra
Kausitikausi - pepper
Kwali - Red sorrel
Segete - Beniseed or sesame
Jamba nabalam - Wheat
Jam ba nubalam - Rice
Jimank ka cilu - Sugar-cane
Landir - Cotton
Wurang - Tobacco
TREES
Lulugte - Baobab-tree
Kumon - Sycamore or fig tree
Jwangte - Indian tamarind
Binri - Jujubetree
Buboite riank - Locust-bean-tree
Kumol - Silk-cotton tree or red flowers
Memte - Shea-butter or shea-nut-tree
AGRICULTURE
Kweliya - siyari-Peasant
Se - Field
Se - Farm
Se wa jiniya yalte - Garden
Se sarmini - Cultivated land
Gume jusiyer wi - Fallow
Tam - soil
Yinte kashi - Fence
Duwum - Seed
Damur wa sutan - Planting stick
Tan - Hoe
Hartang - Harvest
Yun ke yir giri - Sickle
Dumpo - Machete
Tim - Threshing
Damur da timin - Flail
Ju siyar - Cultivate or till
Ju tum - Till soil
Yir - Weed
Gula tum - Dig
Gula - Dig or excavate
Wurila - Ridge-up
Wautang - Sow
Daga - Plant(tomato)
Diga- Plant(tubers)
Digarang - Transplant
Fitang - Wet
Kusitang - Dry up
Jitang - Germinate
Ciptir - Unripe
Bitang - Mature or ripe
Tese - Pluckout
Jigtang - Pick
Butimin - Strip off
Helen - Bundle
COMPOUND
Kai - House or compound
Kanda juwi - entrance hut
Fugon ka juwi - Doorway
Fugon - Door
Kali - Fence
Kanda wete - Stone wall
Kunwor - Grass-hut
Kan - Room
Kuleya kani - Wall9of house)
Hiltang - Roof
Libang - Veranda
Kulo - Abandoned compound
Kulgurun - Bench
Dintilin - Chair
Swete - Bed
Siri - Mat
Kublo kunta - Blanket
Tan - Cornbin or granary
Duun - Rubbish heap
Nuwa gemiyu - Well
Soriya gemiyu - Vessel to draw water
Gurin harji girin - Bucket
Kinde - Storage pot
Sabonte - Soap
Fatin - Bottle
Nyu jiga kam rigi - Mirror
Bwaka tilang - Clay-pot
Tila - Mud-brick
Mutang - Build(house)
Yinamin - Sweep
Bautan wa jinni - Wash
KITCHEN
Karang/mugon - Fire
Silin da karang - Flame
Bwebi - Fire-place
Rita karangyi - Firewood
Yon - Smoke
Bugum - Ash
Yuwar - Axe
Gurda muran - Cooking pot
Ser - Water storage pot
Kubtar - Cup
Kasi - Dish
Gur/kande - Pot
Sau - Cook
Lagu - Knife
Jau - Eat
Yalte - Soup
Tirite - Bitter
Kwa - Grind
Swiyer - Work
Kubtar - Spoon
Tag - Stirring stick
Wer din kwaner - Grinding stone
Busi - Mortar
Kwang - Pestle
Sori busi - Winnow
Sori/kasi - Calabash
Nyergo - Lid(circular mat)
Gulong - Bottle gourd
Swa - Bag
Sur - Stamp or pound
Surtang - Thresh
Yumin - Winnow
Wuwe he - Drawwater
Bau karang - Strike
Dup karang - Carry fire
Yiro rite - Split
Mitang - Spread out in sun to dry
FOOD
Jini jauri - Food
Mon - Mush
Bir - Gruel
Yalte - Stew/sauce/soup
Mim - Flour
Nung - Oil
Riank - Kwiyu-Palm-oil
Nunka tinga - Butter
Brang - Fat
Nyu jig nugtinga - Butter-churn
Fugilte - Foam
Bomkanim - Salt
Kusulo - Boil
Fugilte - Bubble
Har - Roast/grill
Wutugo - Divide(share out)
BREWERY
Kanda cuwa - Beer-pot
Yogi - Filter
Cuwa - Palm-wine
Kasi/sori - Calabash for drinking
Gun - Ferment
Yogtang - Strain
CLOTHES AND JEWELLRY
Dute - Clothe
Dala - Cap
Dugge – Robe (man’s gown)
Dutita wutem - Woman’s clothes
Dug – Shirt
Bubwi - Belt
Bangti - Trouser
Kublo - Woman’s loincloth
Dug ka dur - Scarf(headcloth)
Wangnin - Head-pad
Libirte - Shoe
Damur da yomin - Walking stick
Cini - Ring
Jini kaniyu - Bracelet
Jini naniyu - Anklet
Jini kwiri - Necklace
Jini suniyu - Earring
Gisum - Beads
Batari - Needle
Maitan a jinni – Wear (clothes)
Satang - Sew
Muksate - Embroider
Muksate - Adorn
Kisantan adur - Plait hair
Hala - Rope
WEAVING/DYEING
Landir - Cotton
Satang - Weaver
Nyu sa dug rigi - Loom
Landir - Warp (thread)
Landir - Woof/weft
Kaita landir - Spinner
Riyang ka landir - Spinning stick/distraff
Mulong mulong - Multi-coloured
Fi - dye
PLAITING/BASKETRY
Kisitang adur - Plaiting
Kuto - Basket
Jidari - Mat
Duk - Rope
Jur duk - Make braid rope
Niga - Knot
LEATHER WORK/LEATHER GOODS
Biyang - Skin
Nisa jinni ri biyang - Leather worker
Jini biyang - Leather goods
Kur - Pricker/awl
Batal - needle
Kublo - Tanner
METAL-WORKING
Go kori - Smithery/forge
Sumtang - Brass-casting
Ni suni kori - Blacksmith
Bua - Furnace
Silin - Bellows
Yilba - Blaze
Julni - Charcoal
Sira - Melt
Cimmar - Iron/money
Jini kwiyu - Bronze/brass
Cinni – Tin (metal)
Cinni - Siver
Cinni - Cpper
Cinni - Gold
Jeni - Hammer
Cinni - Chain
POTTERIE
Ni mau gur - Potter
Tila - Clay
Ni furi buri - Kiln
Juri - Place of burning (pit)
Kande/gur - Pot
Kan ka gur - Handle of pot
Nyu gulon - Spout/nozzle
Fu - bake
WOOD-WORKING
Lagu - Saw
Yuwar da suli
Riank - wood
Sultang - Sculture
Banduwa - Market
Nidu wa banduwa - Chief of market
Kandi mi jinni - Shop
Duwon - Trade
Cimmar - Money/cowry
Nuwan da gunon - Ivory
Ni banduwa - Merchant
Ni wura namte - Butcher
Yatang - profit
Bunai - loss
Suni - debt
Suta - buy
Mi - Sell
Mur - Pay
Yir - Barter
Fulgo - Change(goods)
Suni - Lend
Yu suni - Borrow
Kwau - Measure
Funotang - Cheat
Yom - Journey
Mungor - Car
Mungor da kuntang - Lorry
Jini - Load
Bongtulon - Boat/canoe
Sur - Paddle
Ni sur bongtulon - Row
Yoyom - Travel
HUMAN BEINGS AND KINGSHIP TERMS
Dukkamin - Relative
Numba jirai - Ancestors
Ti - Father
Tai - My Father
Nai - My mother
Na - Mother
Bwe - Child
Yugoyi - Widow
Gitini - Widower
Dukka min - Lineage
Lang-ir - Tribe
Kilaki - Harlot
Niyulu - Blackman
Ni kwau - Whiteman
Niri buni - Poor
Niri jinni - Rich
Kewe - Slave/servant
Jarum - Prisoner
Ni totimi - Spy
Nifuwi - Guest
Cigo bwigate - Enemy
Wuri jugur - Mid wife
Gitimi - Bachalorhood
Kewete - Slavery
Bwoili - Youth
Nate - Marriage
Murjini - Dowry
Ni’a nate - Marry
Bugarte - Twin
Bwe cuwi - Daughter
Bwe - Baby
Nibari - Husband
Wuri - Woman/wife
Dagori - Co-wife
Cigira - Brother(elder)
Cisini - Brother(younger)
Cia nai - Mother’s brother
Cia tai - Father’s brother
Cigira - Sister(elder)
Cisini - Sister(younger)
Cisini - Mother’s sister
Ciciwi - Father’s sister
Nigra - Grandmother
Tagra - Grandfather
Yigra - Grandson
Nagra - Granddaughter
Senior - Cigra
Na kani - Mother-in-law
Timiri - Father-in-law
Nyile - Sister-in-law/brother-in-law/
Bwewi - Bride
Bwewi - Maiden/virgin
Bridegoom - bweli
Kumbe - Orphant
GOVERNMENT AND LAW
Nidu - Chief/King
Kwanyu - Queen
Dute - Chieftancy
Royal family - Kaita dute
Kurgaran - Reception
Dute - Title
Palace - Kaita nidu
Niyum - Obey
Ka jaubur - Conquer
Sori - Law
Lejuwi - Offence/violation
Kaita duti - Court
Ni ke yumi - Judge
Yum akaita duti - Legal case
Fung riyum - Accusation
Niya mau wuri - Plaintiff
Ni fung yimi - Prosecutor
Totan - Defence
Duute - Judment/sentence
Jamun kan - Divorce
Kute - Theft
Niku - Thief
Ni juniu - Murderer
MUSIC, DANCE, PLAY
Kur - Drum
Damur da kur - Drumstick
Ni bauri kur - Drummer
Glen’irin - Bell
Yil - Dance
Siang - Xylophon
Siang - Flute
Fir - Algeta/horn/trumpet
Ni yiyilang - Dancer
Weni - Masquerade
Wuri - Shouting
Fiang - Song
Nima fiang - Singer
Ni bari kuri - Musician
Ma fiang - Sing
Baukur - Beatdrum
Ni’a yute - Play
Jum - Horn
RELIGION
Weni ma weni - Priest
Niri weni - Rainmaker
Ni funri weni - Divinator
Ni weni - Oracle
Ni yilo - Sorcerer
Yilo - Witch/witchcraft
Weni - Ordeal/fetish
Nia ju - God
Weni - gods
Cingu - Ghost
Weni - Spirit
Jiniya kewete - Religious objects
Yunong - Charm/amulet
Gu yulgoi - Heaven
Gu bura - Hell
Fiang - Chant
Wura takka wuri - Excision
Jiri kunni - Curse
Buyate - Death
Niya buya - Corpse
Su - Grave
Digtang a su - Funeral
Gun digtan a su - Place of burial
Kanda lahadin - Ritual place
Yuro - Facial markings
Nar - Soul
Kau kute - Cut marks
Kok - Taboo
Lagriga - Book
Bara - bury
Kewete - Worship
Duwe - Avoid
Wutugo jinni - Sacrifice
Gun kur duwi - Mosque
Ni wari yum agun kurduwi - Imam
Ruwatang ayini - Prayer
Gulong - Kettle
Tunu sohi - Fast
DISEASE
Niyim ri bwaute - Medicine man
Yinang - Medicine
Sam - Poison
Wuri - Cough
Nitang akitirin - Fever
Der - wound/sore
Delinde - Scar
Der - Abscess
Ritang - Swell
Kwara - Heal
Bwaute - Disease
Bwaute wa bwitibi – Disease (of children)
Klatang a mimite - Malaria
Turi - Dysentry
TIME AND SEASON
Gusute - World
Korung - Sky
Be songyi - Star
Song - Moon
Ko - Sun
Kwetere a ko - Sunshine
Simba - Wind
Wuleng wuleng - Storm
Korung ka gwe - Cloud
Korang kafiye - Raincloud
Gimna jiu - Rain
Nyelba - Lighting
Mar - Dew
Gu - Harmattan
Jir - Year
Kaan - Dry season
Tam - Earth
Ko - Day
Ga - Place
Far - Swamp
Sila - Tomorrow
Bulun - Dust cloud (of harmattan)/fog
Twong - West
Jiong - East
Kang - Side
Flageri - Seasons
Juswang - Wet season
Fla - Time
Ri-ko - Daylight
Kigulong - Shade
Duuni - Spring
Marnang - Summer
Tamguram - Winter
Sanang - Autum
Yawi siri - Dawn
Mori - Morning
Jugur da ko - Noon
Riyu - Evening
Yu - Dusk
Kum - Night
Lugum - Darkness
Nin dari - Yesterday
Ku - Today
Cire - Last year
Hann - Next year
Kasu - Past
ENVIRONMENT
Tam - Country
Tam - Ground
Yik - Border
Bir - Town
Kai - Village
Jiwi - Road
Bwe juwi - Roadway
Juwi - Track
Nuwahe - Spring of water
La - River
La rijisong - Seasonal river
Nyiya la - Riverbank
Buksor - Marsh(land)/Swamp
Lagar - Forest
Bang - Hill
Jwi - Compound
Ying - Mountain
Fi - Plateau
La - Valley
Wer - Rock/stone
Hun - Cave
Jusai - Sand/gravel
Betuwai - Pebble
Kur - Dust
Ketire - Shine
DAYS OF THE WEEK AND MONTH
Banduwa sitami/laduwi - Monday
Banduwa bwilami - Tuesday
Banduwa dijimi - Wednesday
Banduwa bubi - Thursday
Banduwa kambi - Friday
Banduwa bwi la mangngi - Saturday
Kokunta - Sunday
Song ka kwanang - January
Song ka suwi/suwang - February
Song ka bwanbiying - March
Song ka gwarang - April
Song ka nuwang - May
Song ka nukunung - June
Song kaNyibiying - July
Song ka naruwong - August
Song ka Wurwinang - September
Song ka Kuwong - October
Song ka jiri kwanang - November
Song ka Jirsu wang - December
COLOUR TERMS
Kwiyu - Red
Yilu - Black
Kwau - White
Cintaran - Green
Karma - Blue
Bubwete - Yellow
Nyara karma - Purple
Karma kuga bwiyu - Violet
Tam tam - Bown
Karma Yiluwi - Indigo
Biyute - Orange
Me kwiyu ra kwani - Pink
NUMBERS
Kwan - One
Su - Two
Bwanbi - Three
Gwar - Four
Nu - Five
Nukun - Six
Nyibi - Seven
Naru - Eight
Wurwin - Nine
Kwu - Ten
Jir kwan - Eleven
Jir su - Twelve
Jirta bwanbi - Thirteen
Jirta gwar - Fourteen
Jirta nu - Fifteen
Jirta nukun - Sixteen
Jir nyibi - Seventeen
Jir naru - Eighteen
Jir wurwin - Nineteen
Far ta su - Twenty
Far ta su ajir kwan - Twenty one
Farta bwanbi - Thirty
Farta gwar - Fourty
Farta nu - Fifty
Farta nukun - Sixty
Far nyibi - Seventy
Far naru - Eighty
Far wurwin - Ninety
Bee kwan - 100
Beeta wurwin - 900
Nee kwan - 1000
Neeta kwu - 10000
Neeta bee kwan - 100000
Nee frang - 1000000
Nee frangte - 1000000000
The above lists are some of the linguistic items (words) of Cham Language. By no means is this exhaustive, a zillion others were not able to get entry here due the space and time constraint. As might have been notice above, some of the words do not have word to word translation, but a phrase or even a clause. For instance, butter-churn is translated ‘nyu jig nunka tinga’. Meaning, ‘an object use in extracting a cow’s butter’. Mirror is translated thus: ‘Nyu jiga kam rigi’. Meaning, ‘an object used for looking at one’s face.’ Indeed, this situation is not a problem as it only constitutes how language speakers decide to refer to an object or item.
Moreso, the possibility of certain words existing in one language and lacking in another is not a strange phenomenon. In Cham language, these English words are not found in it: Bullet, bustard, ink, penis sheath, malt, orion etc. This may relate to the fact that the language did not come into contact with such material objects or abstract concepts. Except there is a notice of an object it is practically impossible to describe or name such an item. Where the reverse is the case, every language is inherently sufficient enough to adequately describe its surroundings and the various things contained there in. But again, this does not take away the possibility of borrowing from other languages. This situation happens when two languages or cultures come into contact with each other. For example, Cham borrowed from Hausa the following words: ‘Beli’ (bail), ‘Alwalaa’ (ablution), ‘Rawani’ (turban) etc.
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS DESCRIBTION OF CHAM
This research has discovered that Cham has a total of 23 alphabets: /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /i/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /o/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /w/ /s/ /y/. These are the alphabets that Cham use in writing. The alphabets, /q/ /v/ and /z/ do not exist. While there are a total of 39 sounds: /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /i/ /j/ /k/ l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /ny/ /o/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /u/ /w/ /y/ /bw/ /jw/ /oi/ /ai/ /au/ /uu/ /gw/ /kw/ /mw/ /ee/ /aa/ /pw/ /sw/ /a/. Out of these 13 are vowel sounds:/a/ /a/ /u/ /u/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /ai/ /oi/ /au/ /ee/ /aa/ /uu/. While 26 are consonant sounds:/b/ /c/ / /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /ny/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /w/ /y/ /bw/ /jw/ /gw/ /kw/ /mw/ /pw/ /sw/ .
Examples of vowel souds as they occur in words:
/a/
Ga - place
Ma - sheep
Ta - old
/a/
Sar - to cut
Latam - fall on ground
Tam - earth
Kablang - bow
/aa/
Taam - potash
Taan- hoe
Laatam - onions
Kaan - dry season
Saam - poison
/au/
Sau - fear
Pyau - gazelle
Sau - to cook
Mau - to stone
Fau - search
/oi/
Noi - nurse me
Koi - reject me
Toi - care for me
Yoi - escort me
/ai/
Kai - house or kind of snake
Nai - my mother
Fai - search for me
Mai - wear
Tai - father
/uu/
Duute - judgement
Kuumni - strenght
Duuni - spring
/ee/
Bee kwan - one hundred
Nee kwan - one thousand
Teeri - scorpion
/u/
Susu - beard
Gum - owl
Fur - stomach
Dute - reign
/u/
Dur - head
Su - grave
Yilu - black
/e/
Wer - stone
Se - bush
Nyele – in-laws
Bwe - child
/i/
Biyir - porridge
Yingi - house fly
Nyibi - seven
/o/
Koro - donkey
Ko - day
Yon - smoke
Out of the 13 vowel sounds 10 are pure vowels:/a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ /o/ /ee/ /aa/ /uu/ /u/ /a/. The first 5 are short vowels while the last 5 are long vowels. The remaining 3 are dipthongs:/ai/ /oi/ /au/. The two vowels, /u/ and /a/ are distinguished from /a/ and /u/ that are both obtained in Hausa and English by the straight line under them which also make them long vowels.
The 26 consonant sounds are represented thus:
/b/ as in bi - goat, bak - arrow, Bwanbi - three, bang - hill
/c/ as in cilu - sweet, cuwa - wine, cimar - money, cimi - friend
/d/ as in dun - knee, di - go, jidari - mat, dugum - blood
/f/ as in figu - new, furtasu - twenty, far - swamp, fan - monkey
/g/ as in gur - pot, lagu - knife, muglo - dove, gano - elephant
/h/ as in ham - look, hanang - skin, he - water
/j/ as in jau - eat, jir - come out, ju - kill
/k/ as in kun - war, kang - hand, kak - face, nukun - six
/l/ as in lamar - navel, sila - tomorrow, yalte - soup
/m/ as in mimi - mosquito, mu - build, mai - wear
/n/ as in nu - eye, na - leg, yinang - medicine, nar - liver
/p/ as in pyau - gazelle, pise - bend, patpat - quickly
/r/ as in teeri - scorpion, dungar - egg, hatar - hyena
/s/ as in suta - buy, susu - beard, kosi - skull, su - ear
/t/ as in tai - father, turum - lion, swete - bed, tirite - bitter
/w/ as in wuman - open, wang - leaf, wurang - tobacco
/y/ as in ya - spear, yak - give to, layuwi - electric fish
/ng/ as in nungan - tooth, yunang - tail, ngari - pig
/ny/ as in nyi - mouth, nyele - in-law, nyelba - lighting, nyibi - seven
/bw/ as in bwal - kind of spear, bwa - hole, bwi - body, bwe - child
/jw/ as in jwi - compound, jwal - kind of stick, jwonte - tamarind
/gw/ as in gwi - climb, gwal - hatch, gwali - sorrel, agwe - here
/kw/ as in kwelam - warriors, kweram - pythorn, kwa - to grind
/mw/ as in mwiya - cut into pieces, mwara - grass for roofing,mwa - run
/pw/ as in pwal - sound from breaking something.
/sw/ as in swete - bed, swiyer - work
All the consonant sounds can occur at word initial and medial, but not all can occur at word end. Only 9 out of the 26 consonant sounds can occur at word final position:
/b/ as in nab - people, dab - to take, kub - to desire.
/p/ as in kap - to turn upside down, lap - to frighten, wup - to pass suddently.
/g/ as in bug - to cultivate, sag - to bring down, jig - to remove.
/k/ as in kak - face, tuk - thorn, buk - back
/m/ as in jum - horn, saam - poison, turum - lion
/n/ as in kun - war, fan - monkey, yin - broom
/ng/ as in yunang-tail, wang-leaf, bang-hill
/l/ as in cul - guinea fowl, yil - dance, mungul - potash
/r/ as in mar - dew, tir - year, dasar - catfish
CHAM BASIC SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Cham has a basic sentence structure thus: sv (subject + verb), svo (subject + verb + object) and svoo (subject + verb + indirect object + direct object) similar to those of English. The following are the examples of Cham basic sentence structure with their English translation.
Ka tau klete. – He caught birds.
S v o s v o
Koro ka jau far. – The donkey ate the grass.
S v o s v o
Kan sau jinijauri. – I cook food.
S v o s v o
Rhada ne nai kaita jiyu. – Rhoda gave her mother their house.
S v i.o d.o s v i.o d.o
Peace ne Simon nee frangte. – Peace gave Simon one billion.
S v i.o d.o s v i.o d.o
Kata di. – They go.
S v s v
Kwanyu yi yilang. – Kwanyu dances.
S v s v
Kanan mwaa sak. – We run.
S v s v
Ka mauwuri. – She shouts.
S v s v
Chapter Four
CONCLUSION
It is lucid from the data presented that many of the world’s languages are facing serious thread everyday. Thread in form of language endangerment, language shift and language extinction. This situation is further compounded as the necessities of living keep on surfacing in all ramifications of human activities forcing people to make choices that sometimes are inimical to the survival of their language. Human beings are a central factor, an imperative and vital instrument that ensures the existence or otherwise of a language. The correlation between humans and language is such that one can not be divorce from the other without serious negative impact on each. This is particularly so because the two are mutually interdependent on each other with a serious bound that determine the completeness of each other. Indeed, when humans are devoid of language they have being rendered less human because language plays pivotal role in their existentialism. Likewise it becomes totally difficult if not impossible for a language to exist without human beings making adequate use of it in their daily activities.
A significant negative effect with a deadly impact on the survival of a language happens when the functions performed by a language is reduced to some meager events in the community. This condition comes up when other language considered to be of higher prestige is used to substitute the varied roles previously played by the former language. These situations as has being discussed earlier mitigate the efficacy of the former language which subsequently leads it to an endangered position.
It is without doubt every language is inherently imbued with inept ability to express its surroundings, environment and every thing that is within and around it. No language is in it self except that as it is forced on it by it speakers. To a large extent therefore, the users of a language are responsible to the growth or devaluation of their language. Every language has the requisite credential to live successfully and operate well unless when its users decide to make it play a second fiddle.
Consequently, all endangered languages like Cham needs to be revitalized and put back to track by their very people, so that its full utility will be well harness and exploited not only for the benefit of sons and daughters lf the immediate language users but also for the benefit of the world’s linguistic canon. Otherwise, these languages risk extinction and the people will wake-up one day without defining who they are, without knowing their true identity and without any sense of their historic pass that will help them shape them their present and prepare them for the future.
RECOMMENDATION
There is a need, an urgent one to inform local people and indeed people in general, but particularly the younger generation by the authority’s responsible federal, state and local level that it never pays for one to draw his language to the dustbin while embracing other language for the sake of whatever it possesses. They should be well conscientized to come to the awareness that their indigenous language is their means of identity and pride because within it lies their beliefs, cultures and value system. Learning another language is not evil, but caution should be exercise that it does not or replace or take away their indigenous language.
Traditional institutions should be at the centre of this; they should inform their people to be mindful of the fact that their local language can give them the progress and advancement they need if they make it to. If other languages can, theirs too can; this is because the intrinsic values of all languages are the same. China and other Asian countries are not known today because they speak English or French, but because of how they are able to use the property of their language to engineer creativity and productivity among themselves.
Finally, it is also recommended that government should make it compulsory for the teaching and learning of an indigenous language in its primary community. This will help in the propagation of the language as children grow and socialize in it. The language should not only serve as a course of study, but also as a means of instruction since it is globally acknowledged that children learn faster in their own language. In this regard, government (using the prominent members of the society) should encourage the production of relevant literatures in the language so as to serve the purpose of preservation, reading, writing and learning in the language. If you can not operate in your language, then you are not fully empowered.
REFERENCE
Carmen Lla mas, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell. (2007). The Routledge Companion of Sociolinguistics. London and New york, Routledge.
David, Crystal. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. New york, Cambridge University Press.
Dough, Whalen and K. David Harrison. (200). The World’s Endangered Languages. Encarta Yearbook.
D. C. Anthony Woodbury. (2006). Endangered Language. Retrieved from http://www/sadc.org/infor/ling-fags-endanger.cmf. On 02/02/2011.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 16th ed. Retrieved from http://www.ethnologue.com/show-country.asp?name=Nigeria. On 15th/01/2011.
Greenberg J.H. (1963). Languages of Africa. Bloomington, Indian University Press.
Juliette Blevins. Endangered Sound Patterns: Three Perspectives on Theory and Description. Vol. 1. Retrieved from http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii-education/htm/10125/1721/blevins.html. On 15th/01/2011.
Krauss, Michael E. (2007). Keynote-Mass Language Extinction and Documentation: The Pace Agaist Time. London, Oxford University Press.
Nikolaus P. Himmelman. (1998). Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Berlin, de Gruyter.
R.I. Trusk. (1995). Language: The Basics. 2nd ed. London and Newyork, Routledge.
Miyim, Albert, Albashi. (1990). The Socio-cultural Impact of the Missionary Activities in Cham District of Balanga Local Government of Bauchi State. (unpublished) Final Essay. Department of Christian Religious Studies, A.B.U. Zaria.
Philipp, Strazny. Ed. Encyclopedia of Linguistics.vol.1.New york, Routledge.
Peter K. Austin. (2008). Top Ten Endangered Languages. Retrieved from http://www.guadian.co.uk/book/2008/August/27/ endangered. Languages. On 23rd/02/2011.
Peter, Trudgill. (1974). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. 4th.ed. England, Penguin.
Storto, L.R. (2003). Interactions Between Verb Movement and Agreement in Kuritiana (Tupi Stock); Revista Letras.60:411-33.
Sascha, Griffiths. (2007). Language Documentation: A Research Seminar on Language Endangerment and Documentation. Canterbury, Oxford.
The Hans Rousing Endangered Languages Project (2009). Retrieved from http://www.hrelp.org/documentation/what is it- what is language documentation. On 22/02/2011.
Unesco and Adhoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages. Language Vitality and Endangerment (pdp)2003. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangered languages. On 27th/4/2011.
Introduction:
Language documentation is the process of recording through writing or other forms the history, linguistic property and other peculiar information about a language spoken by a given speech community for the sake of posterity and revitalization. This kind of exercise “plays an important role in maintaining and revitalizing a language, helps in training native speakers as language teachers and writers and leads to future research” (Juliette: 2007). It provides the foundation on which linguistic analysis can be made from a citable set of materials in the language.
Unless a language is documented it can not be develop and when a language does not have the privilege of being documented and developed through conscious and concerted efforts of the language speakers or any other person or group of persons so interested in such a noble course, the language may be gradually given up In favour of more prestigious languages and with time it may be forgotten completely. These described the situation with the language, Cham as fewer people who are sons and daughters of this enthralling language speak it. Children as well as adults find it difficult if not impossible to read and write in the language. They abandoned it for the more prestigious languages like English and Hausa. It is obvious that Cham needs to be rescued from going into extinction. This dissertation is an attempt in that direction to contribute to the few literatures written mostly in this form to revitalize, develop and propagate the language.
BRIEF HISTORY OF CHAM AND HER PEOPLE
Cham is a small minority ethnic group found in Balanga local government area of Gombe state along Yola road, south of the state and Numan local government area of Adamawa state. Originally, ‘Cham’ is known as ‘Chum’ meaning brother. However, as a result of wrong pronunciation by the traders and neighboring tribes who find it difficult to pronounce ‘Chum’ correctly, instead pronounced it as ‘Cham’ which now becomes widely used”(Albashi: 1990).
According to Hassan Tom Firi quoted by Albashi (1990), the people of Cham migrated from Yamel in the east with some tribes like Lunguda, Tula, and Dadiya at about 1777. They came to Africa through Egypt and setlled at Wanda. As a result of poor agricultural land, bad climate and weather, the people of Cham being good agriculturalists decided to move from Wanda to a free and fertile land at Fitilai (Kuntur) in 1797. At Fitilai, Baba Dan Bulo, an informant said, “the people of Cham settled in groups according to their clans. In this small clans, ther is a type of disperse, cross or integrated relationship which is showed by ties of reputed kingship, chieftaincy and religious complexities. Major among these settlements were Fitilai to Bwelimi, and Fitilai to Dijimi, out of which the following small clans emerged: Jabe, Bwelimi, Kwasim, Lebe, Dungurang and Tiksir. These clans believed in peace and have a special love and care for one another and therefore regard themselves as brothers (Shete) plural of Chum, brother”.
According to another informant, Nurudin A.A., what precipitated the movement from Fitilai to Bwelimi and from Fitilai to Dijimi is conflict. He stated, “the movements marked the beginning of dialectal variation: one had settled at Mwona that is Bwelimi and the other at Tiksir which is kindiyo. These two have extended their territory to Bachama land in Adamawa state known as green village in Numan local government and Monatari in Lamurde local government. They finally settled in Kindiyo, Mwona present day Cham district in 1880”.
Cham people are majorly farmers, however today, they are found in virtually every sphere of public and private businesses. Traditionally, they are animists and ancestralogists, but in recent times, many of them have embraced Christianity and Islam.
“Apart from being a name of a tribe, Cham is also the name of one of the towns of the tribe. To the east, Cham is bounded by Lunguda. To the north, by Bachama and Pere. To the west by Waja and to the south by Tula and Dadiya tribes respectively. Cham is made up of many villages: Loja, Bwelimi, Dongaje, Kutare, Kwarge, Kuntur, Yolde, Kwasi, Lebe, Tiksir and Yadi to mention but a few. Cham people also refer to themselves as ‘Dijim’, a plural form of ‘Nidiji’ which connotes something that appeared or come out of the earth’s deep roots which can not be overcome”(Albashi, 1990).
LANGUAGE FAMILY.
(Greenberg: 1963) classified African languages into four language phyla: “Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan and Niger-Congo”. Out of these four and according to Ethnologue.com, Cham appertains to the Niger-Congo group which has according to (Encarta: 2009) an estimated 300 to 400 million speakers across West Africa and Central African Republic.
CHAM DIALECTS
According to these informants, mr and mrs Maila Odah. There are three mutually intelligible dialects in Cham language: Mwona dialect, Loja dialect and Cham dialect. These dialectal variations came as a result of migration. Generally, dialect describes a language variety where a user’s regional or social background appears in his/her accent, use of vocabulary and grammar; the dialects of Cham is not exception, but do not constitute a barrier for comprehension as there is mutual understanding despite the distinction in lexical items, phonology and syntax.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Cham language is no longer actively spoken by the younger members of the language community and very little literatures were written in or about the language. These situations are not favourable to an endangered language like Cham. If this language must survive, then there is the need to document it so that it can be revitalized and developed. The Cham Language and Bible Translation Committee state that “children from Cham or with Cham origin are not able to speak the language; they are not able to read and write in it. Instead, they use English and Hausa. This is indeed a precarious circumstance that threatens not only the survival of the language, but the rich cultural heritage and traditional values of the people. It is in this respect therefore, that the researcher attempts the documentation of some aspects of the Cham language.
SCOPE AND LIMITATION
This research investigation is limited to the linguistic items or vocabularies of Cham, Cham sound systems and basic sentence structure. The grounds covered by these sets carefully scrutinized vocabularies are words associated with the following domains: Wild Animals, domestic Animals, Bee-keeping, Fishing-Hunting-weapons, Horse and Equipments, Plants, Trees, Agriculture, Compound, Kitchen, Food, Brewery, Clothes and Jewelry, Weaving and Dyeing, Plaiting and Basketry, Leather work and Leather goods, Metal-working, Pottery, Wood-working, Market, Human being and Kinship Terms, Government and Law, Music, Dance and Play, Religion, Disease, Time and Reason, Environment and Finally Numbers.
These words are given side by side their English counterparts to facilitate the meaning behind each word.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This dissertation aims to attain the following:
1. The documentation of some aspect of the Cham Language for posterity and revitalization.
2. To contribute to the development of the Language.
3. To make effort toward making sure it does not become a victim of extinction.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Every language carries with it, the traditional values, norms and cultural heritage of the people. It is a marker of identity that gives a people a sense of belonging in the world. When this language goes into extinction, the peoples’ culture and traditions will also vanish with it because it is embodied in it. At the end, it becomes impossible to trace the existence of this group of people. Drawing from this perspective therefore, the significance of this long essay is the preservation of the language, culture and tradition of the people of Cham, a part or segment of human existence. It will also contribute to the body of human language especially linguistics by showcasing the unique and rich linguistic property of a language hitherto unknown.
METHODOLOGY
For the purpose of this project, the researcher made used of two methods for the collection of data. These are: Oral interview and questionnaire. The oral interview was to aid easy flow of communication between the researcher and the aged persons who are unable to read the questionnaire. It was also considered that using the questionnaire method only will not give sufficient coverage hence the need to combine the two methods. After the collation, the data are carefully analyzed by presenting them in their sub-group along side their English translation.
Chapter Two
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION:
This chapter attempts to review relevant literatures that are related to endangered languages and language documentation. Nonetheless, before going any further, it is imperative to know what a language is. Language is the repository of the culture, norm and ideology of a people and it serves as the means of transmitting knowledge from generation to generation. Austin (2008: pp 4) says, “Each language expresses the history, culture, society and identity of the people who speak it and each is a unique way of talking about the world”. “All languages have developed to express the needs of their users and in a sense all languages are equal” (Crystal: 1987, pp 91). Once man is without language, he is fundamentally reduced from his elevated position of a human being.
Sadly, some languages are not able to live-up to those responsibilities or functions not because they are intrinsically deficient, but because the language speakers failed to engage it into its full utility. This circumstance is peculiar to series of languages around the globe that heavily encroach on their potency. Thus, these languages start fading away gradually into oblivion.
ENDANGERED LANGUAGE
According to Unesco’s Adhoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages, “a situation where speakers of a language cease to use the language, instead use I in increasingly reduced number of communicative and ceased to pass it from one generation to the next constitute language endangerment” (2003: par, 2). Anthony Woodbury (2006: par, 2) is of the notion that “an endangered language is one that is likely to become extinct in the near future. Many languages are failing out of use and are being replaced by others that are more widely used in the region or nation”. Wikipedia the free encyclopedia on its part sees endangered language as “a language that is at risk of failing out of use. When a language is not spoken or learned by children, then that language is endangered” (par, 1). For Philipp Strazny (2005: pp, 212) endangered language or what he calls ‘language attrition’ is “the situation where the native language is used in increasingly fewer domains with few functions such as at home, with friends, and at social events”.
Linguists as stated by Whalen and Harrison (2000: par, 7, 8 & 9) divided languages into three categories: Healthy, Endangered and Extinct. A healthy language they say is “one that is currently being learned by children as a first language. Healthy languages are generally used in all works of life; at home, in school, at work, and in other private and public settings. Endangered language is further divided into various levels of endangerment. In the first level of endangerment in which language is still considered healthy, the percentage of children who speak the language typically falls below the percentage of the adults who speak the language. If parents stop or are forced to stop teaching their children their native language, the language may become severely endangered. The most endangered languages are called Moribund. A moribund language still has native speakers, but it is not being learned by children; often, just a few elderly speakers remained. An extinct Language on the other hand is one with no living native speakers”.
Following the above classification, Cham language appertains to the moribund class. This position is based on the fact that children no longer learn the language; there are just a handful of elderly and adult speakers. Cham as a language has unfortunately fallen into this precarious situation which threatens not only the survival, security, and existence of the language, but also the global linguistic canon and world’s cultural diversity. What precipitated this condition is the long years or period of neglect combined with the exclusive used of Hausa and English for conducting their daily activities in school, politics, business/trading, religious worship and social events. Indeed, there is also the spread of the mass media that brought an insidious new threat on it. To day even the remotest house in Cham has either a radio or television or both. The language often utilized in these media from morning to evening is Hausa and/or English. This by it self has a psychological effect on the children and adults who will graciously imbibe it as the language of prestige and of the elite which they home to reach.
Crucial to all the views aforementioned are:
The limited use of the language by its speakers in their daily activities.
The language’s operative competence is restricted to fewer domains such as ceremonial and formal functions.
The language is not transmitted to younger generation.
A Unesco report (1993) has it that half of the approximated 6700 languages spoken today are in danger of disappearing before the century ends. In 1992, another Unesco report states that “the International Congress of Linguist (CIPL) meeting in Quebec Canada discussed the topic of endangered languages as a result of which it formed the endangered language committee under the authority of Unesco. In 1993 this committee came up with “The Red Book of Endangered Languages”, which was published by Unesco and contained a comprehensive lists of the world’s languages currently facing extinction and endangerment. Hundreds and thousands of languages facing extinction and endangerment are reported in this Red Book of Endangered Languages. Some of these endangered languages in Nigeria include: Bassa, Kontagora, Bete, Fali of Baissa, Defaka, Kiong, Kuducamo, Labir,Lere, Lufu,Luri, Njerep, Odut, Putai, Rono and many others. Whalen and Harrison (2000) also reported that “as the new millennium comes to a close more than 6000 distinct human languages are in used world wide. Many linguists predict that the year 2100, only half of the languages will be spoken, a lost of one language every twelve days”.
Linguist, M. Krauss (2007) argues that for a language to survive it needs at least 100,000 speakers. Krauss view puts emphasis on just the number of speakers that are available to speak the language. However, this can not provide us with sufficient assurance. For example, linguist, L.R. Storto (2003) who worked on endangered languages in Brazil says that “the ‘Karitiana’ language in Brazil has only 185 speakers out of a total population of 191. Even though 185 is not a large number, Karitiana speakers both young and old make up 96% of the population of the community. Yet, the language is not endangered because there is transmission and active usage of the language by the younger generation. At the other extreme end, Yiddish, the international language of the Jews from Central to Eastern Europe until the middle of the 20th century, with around 3 million speakers is considered by linguists as an endangered language. This is as a result of its similitude position with Cham language with many elderly speakers with no children learners or the language is not transmitted to the younger generation. Austin (2008: par, 2) points out to this truism when he says that “in order to judge if a language is endangered, the number of the speakers is less important, what is important is its transmission to younger generation”.
The implication of all these is that adults and children are a veritable medium that provide the safest way of promoting, sustaining and propagating a language. Nonetheless, as Philipp (2005: par, 2) states, “language vitality is ranked in terms of number and generations of speakers”. It is this that Crystal (1987: 281) meant when he posits that “for a language to count as living, there obviously have to be active speakers alive who use it. Therefore, simply counting the number of speakers is not the best way to decide if a language will survive or not. Rather, the vitality of a language depends on how well a language is transmitted to younger generation”.
REASONS BEHIND LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT
The causes of language endangerment are complex and vary with individual situations. In Cham territories for example, the primary cause is language shift, a situation where speakers of a language cease to speak their native or local language in favour of the language that is perceived to be the most influential culture politically, socially and economically. The situation usually comes into being when there are no such values or prestige attached to the local or heritage language. In most cases Philipp (2005: 286) says, “Such a shift can occur over a number of generations; the oldest generation, the grand parents speak the heritage language as their first and primary language. The middle generation has some knowledge about the local language, but uses the dominant/influential language primarily, and the younger generation has little or no knowledge of the local language and may at most know a few words or phrases”.
This state of affairs has greatly reduced the performative abilities of such languages like Cham; thereby, forcing them to play a second fiddle in an environment where Hausa and English are becoming the order of the day
Accordingly, Crystal (1987: 111) remarks that “economic prospects attract younger members of a community away from the villages; so also educational pursued. Inevitably, circumstance will create the motive for them to start using the language of their new environment”. This idea of adapting to the language of ones new environment is inevitable according to Melting Pot Theory. One can further buttress this point by looking at Nigeria’s Home Movies which only show young men and women progressing after they desert their villages for the city centre. This is sending wrong signals to the youths. Austin (2008, par, 1) “This quest for human progress which they (the community people) feel they can not locate in their local language drive them away from their major essence and means of universal identity to what they feel can provide them with the much craved progress”. This is what Philipp (2005: 287) meant by saying that “members of a language community often believed that knowledge of the dominant language like Hausa in the North and Pidgin in the south is a necessary tool for success in the dominant culture and that knowledge of the heritage language is a hindrance to socio-economic advancement”. It is a common phenomenon today that people only tend to speak languages that are socially and economically useful. Anything contrary they look at it as a waste of time.
The situation is further compounded as local celebrities are themselves not encouraging the younger ones to speak in their local languages; instead they speak Hausa, Pidgin or English depending on their regional orientation. This situation should not be slightly considered because these celebrities are a major influence to the younger ones.
In addition, parents sometimes don’t encourage their children by teaching them their local language. In this case, the child is left with no option but to learn the language readily available to him at his disposal in school, in the street, at church or mosque and on the radio or television. This breached in generation to generation transmission of the local language seriously jeopardize its existence.
LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION
Because a society’s history and culture is contained in its language and because as a language disappears, it carries with it everything that is contained within it, it becomes crucial that conscious effort is make to prevent a situation where the major essence of human, dignity, pride and identity is completely lost without trace. Trask (1995: 207) declares this fact when he says “the most obvious outward sign of our identity is our language”. Whalen and Harrison (2000, par, 17) also note that “important clues to human history are buried in language”. If so, it is therefore essential that languages are put in black and white to eschew such situations where they die alongside what they carry in them.
“One response to language endangerment has been the creation of a new discipline within linguistics called Language Documentation (or Linguistic Documentation). It is often said to have been catalyzed Nikolaus P. Himmeimanne” (the Hans, par, 2). Nikolaus wrote in his book, Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics (1998: 166) that “the aim of a language documentation is to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speech community…This…differs fundamentally from language description which aims at the record of language as a system of abstract elements, construction and rules”. The Unesco’s Adhoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages (2003, par, 4)looks at language documentation as “the process by which a language is documented in terms of its grammar, its lexicon and in terms of its oral traditions(stories, songs and religious texts)”. On its part, Wikipedia states that “once a language is determined to be endangered, there are two basic steps that need to be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first Wikipedia claims is language documentation which is the process by which a language is documented in terms of its grammar, vocabulary and oral traditions like tales and riddles. The second is language revitalization which means that a language community through political, community and educational means attempts to increase the number of active speakers of the endangered language. This process, Wikipedia further states is termed language revival or reversing language shift.
To Lehmann (2001) quoted by Sascha (2007, par, 2) says language documentation “is part of the overall documentation of a culture or as part of the comprehensive presentation of a language”. Himmelmann (1998) also quoted by Sascha views language documentation as an independent field of research for linguistic and linguistic anthropology which focuses on the collection of primary data (language data) with special emphasis on endangered languages. To Sascha (2007) “the term is geared towards gathering an amount of data that is representative of the linguistic system of a language as a whole”.
Finally, language documentation is a conscious attempt undertaking to write down the linguistic property of a language in order to keep it safe from being lost and for posterity.
Language endangerment on its part is a highly dangerous phenomenon that could happen to a language. It shrinks and renders a language invalid, incapacitated and inactive; thereby forcing it to loose effectiveness. It is necessary and a matter of urgency that such a language is documented to ensure its continuous survival.
Chapter Three
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
This section presents the data collected in the field. They comprise of linguistic items or words from different fields and areas of study. They are given side-by-side their English translation. This chapter also contains the vowels and consonants description of Cham as well as the Cham basic sentence structures. The first word in each line is in Cham followed by its English translation.
WILD ANIMALS:
Namte - Animal
Namte se - Wild animal
Kullon - Crocodile
Namwalai - Hippopotamus
Namriguwon - Antelope
Pyau - Gazelle
Grima se - Buffalo
Korose - Giraffe
Namkiya - Wart-hog
Fun - Baboon
Fun - Monkey
Fun - Chimpanzee
Tu - Cobra
Kweram - Python
Dullon - Squirrel
Tu - Mouse
Tu - Rat
Gum or Killeya - Owl
Ta or Turitifi - Porcupine
Babuwe - Rabbit
Babuwe - Hare
Ta - Hedgehog
Jinijirti - Wild cat
Namkiya - Leopard
Gano - Elephant
Muglo - Dove
Turum or Dumbo - Lion
Nam ribirsan - Jackal
So - Snake
Grissinte - Viper
Buntar - Lizard
Bwilin bwilin - Agama Lizard
Guba gubari - Gecko
Sala - Monitor
Semi semi - Chameleon
Gantan - Crab
Chunboi - Frog
Bete chumboi - Toad
Kirga - Snail
Gurya yili - Tortoise
Laate - Fish
Dasar - Mudfish or cat fish
Kille - Bird
Kaita kille - Nest
Kille kwiwi - Cattle egret
Kille kuse - Crested crane
Kwakwa - crow
Kille gimi - Duck
Kolon kase - bush fowl
Weser - Falon
Weser - Kite
Jelburin - Vulture
Nam walai - Ostrich
Sengsengyi - Bat
Minte sutti - (big black)ant
Minte kwiyu - (red)ant
Mimi - ant
Minte - (small black) ant
Buri - Termite
Buri - Ant-hill
Suru da burin - Termite pile
Dugor - Insect
Yi - Fly
Mimi - Mosquito
Lauri - Tsetsefly
Bulo bulogi - Butterfly
Gulgo waniyu - Caterpillar
Gulgo - Worm
Dugor - Bug
Kilgunte - Louse
Lauri - Flea
Kutiri - Tick
Kitakeri - Cricket
Lingate - Grashopper
Lingate - Locust
Lirinte - Spider
Yuglon - Mantis
Teeri - Scorpion
Te – Sting (bee, ant,scorpion)
DOMESTIC ANIMALS
Namta kai - Domestic animal
Namta chuwi - Female animal
Namta wubari - Male animal
Joi - Dog
Tu - cat
Tinga - Cattle
Gumtul - Bull
Befuri - Ox
Betinga - Calf
Koro - Donkey
Bi - Goat
Bi wuchiwe - She-goat
Gumbar - He-goat
Bebi - Kid
Ma - Sheep
Ma - ewe
Bugtor - Ram
Yiri - Pig
Yiri chiwe - Sow
Yinti kasi - Enclosure
Yiwa gimi - Water place
Damur - Stick
Yawi - Chicken
Kolong - Cock
Chul - Guinea-fowl
Klekai - Domestic pigeon
Nam - Meat
Jum - Horn
Winang - Tail
Dungar - egg
Fumni - Wing
Fumwakle - feather
Bote ta biti - Dung
Mugte or Ju - Kill
Kli - Bite
Kummarang – Ruminate
Buwon - Give birth
Totan - herd
Kusam - Milk
Buwong - Call
Musaran wa bite - Tame animals
Ka - Drive away
Gum naji - Fly
Mua - Jump
BEE KEEPING
Yite - Bee
Ni ti yite - Apiaristor bee keeper
Mumangteor Kaita yite - Apiary or bee house
Gimi yite - Honey
Munda Yite - Honeycomb
Kurgaran ka yite - Swarm of bees
FISHING, HUNT, WEAPONS
Yogi wa lati - Fishing net
Kublon - Hook/fishtrap
Ni tuwa lati - Fishman
Duwi - Hunt
Ni tari namti - Hunter
Na - Footprint
Jinia kuni - Weapon
Bak - arrow
He - water
Kun - War
Kwelam - warriors
Nub - people
Kublon - Bow
Dun - Quiver
Ya - Spear
Dunbo - Sword
Lagu - Dagger
Lagu - knife
Te lagu - Throwing knife
Gum - Club
Gursa - Gun
Finjila - Sling
Bwigate - Combat
Kun - Attack
Kursa - Dress of a warrior
Kursa - Armour
Kursa - Shield
Dala kuni - Helmet
Kwelum ba kunum - Warriors
Fun risik - Chase
Te - shoot
Bau - hit
Mau wer - Throw stone
Mau ya - Throw spear
Kur - stab
Mai atum - Over power
HORSE AND EQUIPTMENT
Mungor - Horse
Be mungor - Stallion
Dukka mungor - Bit
Jini dukka mungor - Bridle
Dukka mungor - Stirrup
Gu chiri - Saddle
Sa guchiri - Saddle bag
Umbi-Riding - whip
Lubrite-Riding - boots
Jinia mungor - Harness
Filin damungor - Flag
Filin da mungor - Banner
Ya - Lance
Ni mungor - Horseman
Gwi - Ride
PLANTS
Se - Bush
Lagar - Forest
Yir - Grass
Riank - Tree
Riank - Wood
Haki - Branch
Bwi-riank - Trunk
Sagari - root
Wula ka riank - Bark
Wang - Leaf
Filin da riank - Flower
Beta riank - Fruit
Tuk - Thorn
Jam - Grain
Namta yawi - Mushroom
Lumte - Marrow
Chulun da ni kwiwi - Pawpaw
Jini lumanyi - Orange
Mukrimuk - Lemon
Gulum - Groundnut
Gungoji - Bambaranut
Beta riank kadikadin - Kolanut
Riank ka chulu - Banana
Klanyi - Beans
Kusante - Garden egg
Laatum - Onion
Chulun - Pumpkin
Jini chulu - Melon/watermelon
Yute - Yam
Yin - Broom
Jam - Guinea corn
Jam - Millet
Jam – Late millet
Butali - Maize
Kurgote - Okra
Kausitikausi - pepper
Kwali - Red sorrel
Segete - Beniseed or sesame
Jamba nabalam - Wheat
Jam ba nubalam - Rice
Jimank ka cilu - Sugar-cane
Landir - Cotton
Wurang - Tobacco
TREES
Lulugte - Baobab-tree
Kumon - Sycamore or fig tree
Jwangte - Indian tamarind
Binri - Jujubetree
Buboite riank - Locust-bean-tree
Kumol - Silk-cotton tree or red flowers
Memte - Shea-butter or shea-nut-tree
AGRICULTURE
Kweliya - siyari-Peasant
Se - Field
Se - Farm
Se wa jiniya yalte - Garden
Se sarmini - Cultivated land
Gume jusiyer wi - Fallow
Tam - soil
Yinte kashi - Fence
Duwum - Seed
Damur wa sutan - Planting stick
Tan - Hoe
Hartang - Harvest
Yun ke yir giri - Sickle
Dumpo - Machete
Tim - Threshing
Damur da timin - Flail
Ju siyar - Cultivate or till
Ju tum - Till soil
Yir - Weed
Gula tum - Dig
Gula - Dig or excavate
Wurila - Ridge-up
Wautang - Sow
Daga - Plant(tomato)
Diga- Plant(tubers)
Digarang - Transplant
Fitang - Wet
Kusitang - Dry up
Jitang - Germinate
Ciptir - Unripe
Bitang - Mature or ripe
Tese - Pluckout
Jigtang - Pick
Butimin - Strip off
Helen - Bundle
COMPOUND
Kai - House or compound
Kanda juwi - entrance hut
Fugon ka juwi - Doorway
Fugon - Door
Kali - Fence
Kanda wete - Stone wall
Kunwor - Grass-hut
Kan - Room
Kuleya kani - Wall9of house)
Hiltang - Roof
Libang - Veranda
Kulo - Abandoned compound
Kulgurun - Bench
Dintilin - Chair
Swete - Bed
Siri - Mat
Kublo kunta - Blanket
Tan - Cornbin or granary
Duun - Rubbish heap
Nuwa gemiyu - Well
Soriya gemiyu - Vessel to draw water
Gurin harji girin - Bucket
Kinde - Storage pot
Sabonte - Soap
Fatin - Bottle
Nyu jiga kam rigi - Mirror
Bwaka tilang - Clay-pot
Tila - Mud-brick
Mutang - Build(house)
Yinamin - Sweep
Bautan wa jinni - Wash
KITCHEN
Karang/mugon - Fire
Silin da karang - Flame
Bwebi - Fire-place
Rita karangyi - Firewood
Yon - Smoke
Bugum - Ash
Yuwar - Axe
Gurda muran - Cooking pot
Ser - Water storage pot
Kubtar - Cup
Kasi - Dish
Gur/kande - Pot
Sau - Cook
Lagu - Knife
Jau - Eat
Yalte - Soup
Tirite - Bitter
Kwa - Grind
Swiyer - Work
Kubtar - Spoon
Tag - Stirring stick
Wer din kwaner - Grinding stone
Busi - Mortar
Kwang - Pestle
Sori busi - Winnow
Sori/kasi - Calabash
Nyergo - Lid(circular mat)
Gulong - Bottle gourd
Swa - Bag
Sur - Stamp or pound
Surtang - Thresh
Yumin - Winnow
Wuwe he - Drawwater
Bau karang - Strike
Dup karang - Carry fire
Yiro rite - Split
Mitang - Spread out in sun to dry
FOOD
Jini jauri - Food
Mon - Mush
Bir - Gruel
Yalte - Stew/sauce/soup
Mim - Flour
Nung - Oil
Riank - Kwiyu-Palm-oil
Nunka tinga - Butter
Brang - Fat
Nyu jig nugtinga - Butter-churn
Fugilte - Foam
Bomkanim - Salt
Kusulo - Boil
Fugilte - Bubble
Har - Roast/grill
Wutugo - Divide(share out)
BREWERY
Kanda cuwa - Beer-pot
Yogi - Filter
Cuwa - Palm-wine
Kasi/sori - Calabash for drinking
Gun - Ferment
Yogtang - Strain
CLOTHES AND JEWELLRY
Dute - Clothe
Dala - Cap
Dugge – Robe (man’s gown)
Dutita wutem - Woman’s clothes
Dug – Shirt
Bubwi - Belt
Bangti - Trouser
Kublo - Woman’s loincloth
Dug ka dur - Scarf(headcloth)
Wangnin - Head-pad
Libirte - Shoe
Damur da yomin - Walking stick
Cini - Ring
Jini kaniyu - Bracelet
Jini naniyu - Anklet
Jini kwiri - Necklace
Jini suniyu - Earring
Gisum - Beads
Batari - Needle
Maitan a jinni – Wear (clothes)
Satang - Sew
Muksate - Embroider
Muksate - Adorn
Kisantan adur - Plait hair
Hala - Rope
WEAVING/DYEING
Landir - Cotton
Satang - Weaver
Nyu sa dug rigi - Loom
Landir - Warp (thread)
Landir - Woof/weft
Kaita landir - Spinner
Riyang ka landir - Spinning stick/distraff
Mulong mulong - Multi-coloured
Fi - dye
PLAITING/BASKETRY
Kisitang adur - Plaiting
Kuto - Basket
Jidari - Mat
Duk - Rope
Jur duk - Make braid rope
Niga - Knot
LEATHER WORK/LEATHER GOODS
Biyang - Skin
Nisa jinni ri biyang - Leather worker
Jini biyang - Leather goods
Kur - Pricker/awl
Batal - needle
Kublo - Tanner
METAL-WORKING
Go kori - Smithery/forge
Sumtang - Brass-casting
Ni suni kori - Blacksmith
Bua - Furnace
Silin - Bellows
Yilba - Blaze
Julni - Charcoal
Sira - Melt
Cimmar - Iron/money
Jini kwiyu - Bronze/brass
Cinni – Tin (metal)
Cinni - Siver
Cinni - Cpper
Cinni - Gold
Jeni - Hammer
Cinni - Chain
POTTERIE
Ni mau gur - Potter
Tila - Clay
Ni furi buri - Kiln
Juri - Place of burning (pit)
Kande/gur - Pot
Kan ka gur - Handle of pot
Nyu gulon - Spout/nozzle
Fu - bake
WOOD-WORKING
Lagu - Saw
Yuwar da suli
Riank - wood
Sultang - Sculture
Banduwa - Market
Nidu wa banduwa - Chief of market
Kandi mi jinni - Shop
Duwon - Trade
Cimmar - Money/cowry
Nuwan da gunon - Ivory
Ni banduwa - Merchant
Ni wura namte - Butcher
Yatang - profit
Bunai - loss
Suni - debt
Suta - buy
Mi - Sell
Mur - Pay
Yir - Barter
Fulgo - Change(goods)
Suni - Lend
Yu suni - Borrow
Kwau - Measure
Funotang - Cheat
Yom - Journey
Mungor - Car
Mungor da kuntang - Lorry
Jini - Load
Bongtulon - Boat/canoe
Sur - Paddle
Ni sur bongtulon - Row
Yoyom - Travel
HUMAN BEINGS AND KINGSHIP TERMS
Dukkamin - Relative
Numba jirai - Ancestors
Ti - Father
Tai - My Father
Nai - My mother
Na - Mother
Bwe - Child
Yugoyi - Widow
Gitini - Widower
Dukka min - Lineage
Lang-ir - Tribe
Kilaki - Harlot
Niyulu - Blackman
Ni kwau - Whiteman
Niri buni - Poor
Niri jinni - Rich
Kewe - Slave/servant
Jarum - Prisoner
Ni totimi - Spy
Nifuwi - Guest
Cigo bwigate - Enemy
Wuri jugur - Mid wife
Gitimi - Bachalorhood
Kewete - Slavery
Bwoili - Youth
Nate - Marriage
Murjini - Dowry
Ni’a nate - Marry
Bugarte - Twin
Bwe cuwi - Daughter
Bwe - Baby
Nibari - Husband
Wuri - Woman/wife
Dagori - Co-wife
Cigira - Brother(elder)
Cisini - Brother(younger)
Cia nai - Mother’s brother
Cia tai - Father’s brother
Cigira - Sister(elder)
Cisini - Sister(younger)
Cisini - Mother’s sister
Ciciwi - Father’s sister
Nigra - Grandmother
Tagra - Grandfather
Yigra - Grandson
Nagra - Granddaughter
Senior - Cigra
Na kani - Mother-in-law
Timiri - Father-in-law
Nyile - Sister-in-law/brother-in-law/
Bwewi - Bride
Bwewi - Maiden/virgin
Bridegoom - bweli
Kumbe - Orphant
GOVERNMENT AND LAW
Nidu - Chief/King
Kwanyu - Queen
Dute - Chieftancy
Royal family - Kaita dute
Kurgaran - Reception
Dute - Title
Palace - Kaita nidu
Niyum - Obey
Ka jaubur - Conquer
Sori - Law
Lejuwi - Offence/violation
Kaita duti - Court
Ni ke yumi - Judge
Yum akaita duti - Legal case
Fung riyum - Accusation
Niya mau wuri - Plaintiff
Ni fung yimi - Prosecutor
Totan - Defence
Duute - Judment/sentence
Jamun kan - Divorce
Kute - Theft
Niku - Thief
Ni juniu - Murderer
MUSIC, DANCE, PLAY
Kur - Drum
Damur da kur - Drumstick
Ni bauri kur - Drummer
Glen’irin - Bell
Yil - Dance
Siang - Xylophon
Siang - Flute
Fir - Algeta/horn/trumpet
Ni yiyilang - Dancer
Weni - Masquerade
Wuri - Shouting
Fiang - Song
Nima fiang - Singer
Ni bari kuri - Musician
Ma fiang - Sing
Baukur - Beatdrum
Ni’a yute - Play
Jum - Horn
RELIGION
Weni ma weni - Priest
Niri weni - Rainmaker
Ni funri weni - Divinator
Ni weni - Oracle
Ni yilo - Sorcerer
Yilo - Witch/witchcraft
Weni - Ordeal/fetish
Nia ju - God
Weni - gods
Cingu - Ghost
Weni - Spirit
Jiniya kewete - Religious objects
Yunong - Charm/amulet
Gu yulgoi - Heaven
Gu bura - Hell
Fiang - Chant
Wura takka wuri - Excision
Jiri kunni - Curse
Buyate - Death
Niya buya - Corpse
Su - Grave
Digtang a su - Funeral
Gun digtan a su - Place of burial
Kanda lahadin - Ritual place
Yuro - Facial markings
Nar - Soul
Kau kute - Cut marks
Kok - Taboo
Lagriga - Book
Bara - bury
Kewete - Worship
Duwe - Avoid
Wutugo jinni - Sacrifice
Gun kur duwi - Mosque
Ni wari yum agun kurduwi - Imam
Ruwatang ayini - Prayer
Gulong - Kettle
Tunu sohi - Fast
DISEASE
Niyim ri bwaute - Medicine man
Yinang - Medicine
Sam - Poison
Wuri - Cough
Nitang akitirin - Fever
Der - wound/sore
Delinde - Scar
Der - Abscess
Ritang - Swell
Kwara - Heal
Bwaute - Disease
Bwaute wa bwitibi – Disease (of children)
Klatang a mimite - Malaria
Turi - Dysentry
TIME AND SEASON
Gusute - World
Korung - Sky
Be songyi - Star
Song - Moon
Ko - Sun
Kwetere a ko - Sunshine
Simba - Wind
Wuleng wuleng - Storm
Korung ka gwe - Cloud
Korang kafiye - Raincloud
Gimna jiu - Rain
Nyelba - Lighting
Mar - Dew
Gu - Harmattan
Jir - Year
Kaan - Dry season
Tam - Earth
Ko - Day
Ga - Place
Far - Swamp
Sila - Tomorrow
Bulun - Dust cloud (of harmattan)/fog
Twong - West
Jiong - East
Kang - Side
Flageri - Seasons
Juswang - Wet season
Fla - Time
Ri-ko - Daylight
Kigulong - Shade
Duuni - Spring
Marnang - Summer
Tamguram - Winter
Sanang - Autum
Yawi siri - Dawn
Mori - Morning
Jugur da ko - Noon
Riyu - Evening
Yu - Dusk
Kum - Night
Lugum - Darkness
Nin dari - Yesterday
Ku - Today
Cire - Last year
Hann - Next year
Kasu - Past
ENVIRONMENT
Tam - Country
Tam - Ground
Yik - Border
Bir - Town
Kai - Village
Jiwi - Road
Bwe juwi - Roadway
Juwi - Track
Nuwahe - Spring of water
La - River
La rijisong - Seasonal river
Nyiya la - Riverbank
Buksor - Marsh(land)/Swamp
Lagar - Forest
Bang - Hill
Jwi - Compound
Ying - Mountain
Fi - Plateau
La - Valley
Wer - Rock/stone
Hun - Cave
Jusai - Sand/gravel
Betuwai - Pebble
Kur - Dust
Ketire - Shine
DAYS OF THE WEEK AND MONTH
Banduwa sitami/laduwi - Monday
Banduwa bwilami - Tuesday
Banduwa dijimi - Wednesday
Banduwa bubi - Thursday
Banduwa kambi - Friday
Banduwa bwi la mangngi - Saturday
Kokunta - Sunday
Song ka kwanang - January
Song ka suwi/suwang - February
Song ka bwanbiying - March
Song ka gwarang - April
Song ka nuwang - May
Song ka nukunung - June
Song kaNyibiying - July
Song ka naruwong - August
Song ka Wurwinang - September
Song ka Kuwong - October
Song ka jiri kwanang - November
Song ka Jirsu wang - December
COLOUR TERMS
Kwiyu - Red
Yilu - Black
Kwau - White
Cintaran - Green
Karma - Blue
Bubwete - Yellow
Nyara karma - Purple
Karma kuga bwiyu - Violet
Tam tam - Bown
Karma Yiluwi - Indigo
Biyute - Orange
Me kwiyu ra kwani - Pink
NUMBERS
Kwan - One
Su - Two
Bwanbi - Three
Gwar - Four
Nu - Five
Nukun - Six
Nyibi - Seven
Naru - Eight
Wurwin - Nine
Kwu - Ten
Jir kwan - Eleven
Jir su - Twelve
Jirta bwanbi - Thirteen
Jirta gwar - Fourteen
Jirta nu - Fifteen
Jirta nukun - Sixteen
Jir nyibi - Seventeen
Jir naru - Eighteen
Jir wurwin - Nineteen
Far ta su - Twenty
Far ta su ajir kwan - Twenty one
Farta bwanbi - Thirty
Farta gwar - Fourty
Farta nu - Fifty
Farta nukun - Sixty
Far nyibi - Seventy
Far naru - Eighty
Far wurwin - Ninety
Bee kwan - 100
Beeta wurwin - 900
Nee kwan - 1000
Neeta kwu - 10000
Neeta bee kwan - 100000
Nee frang - 1000000
Nee frangte - 1000000000
The above lists are some of the linguistic items (words) of Cham Language. By no means is this exhaustive, a zillion others were not able to get entry here due the space and time constraint. As might have been notice above, some of the words do not have word to word translation, but a phrase or even a clause. For instance, butter-churn is translated ‘nyu jig nunka tinga’. Meaning, ‘an object use in extracting a cow’s butter’. Mirror is translated thus: ‘Nyu jiga kam rigi’. Meaning, ‘an object used for looking at one’s face.’ Indeed, this situation is not a problem as it only constitutes how language speakers decide to refer to an object or item.
Moreso, the possibility of certain words existing in one language and lacking in another is not a strange phenomenon. In Cham language, these English words are not found in it: Bullet, bustard, ink, penis sheath, malt, orion etc. This may relate to the fact that the language did not come into contact with such material objects or abstract concepts. Except there is a notice of an object it is practically impossible to describe or name such an item. Where the reverse is the case, every language is inherently sufficient enough to adequately describe its surroundings and the various things contained there in. But again, this does not take away the possibility of borrowing from other languages. This situation happens when two languages or cultures come into contact with each other. For example, Cham borrowed from Hausa the following words: ‘Beli’ (bail), ‘Alwalaa’ (ablution), ‘Rawani’ (turban) etc.
VOWELS AND CONSONANTS DESCRIBTION OF CHAM
This research has discovered that Cham has a total of 23 alphabets: /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /i/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /o/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /w/ /s/ /y/. These are the alphabets that Cham use in writing. The alphabets, /q/ /v/ and /z/ do not exist. While there are a total of 39 sounds: /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /i/ /j/ /k/ l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /ny/ /o/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /u/ /w/ /y/ /bw/ /jw/ /oi/ /ai/ /au/ /uu/ /gw/ /kw/ /mw/ /ee/ /aa/ /pw/ /sw/ /a/. Out of these 13 are vowel sounds:/a/ /a/ /u/ /u/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /ai/ /oi/ /au/ /ee/ /aa/ /uu/. While 26 are consonant sounds:/b/ /c/ / /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /ny/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /w/ /y/ /bw/ /jw/ /gw/ /kw/ /mw/ /pw/ /sw/ .
Examples of vowel souds as they occur in words:
/a/
Ga - place
Ma - sheep
Ta - old
/a/
Sar - to cut
Latam - fall on ground
Tam - earth
Kablang - bow
/aa/
Taam - potash
Taan- hoe
Laatam - onions
Kaan - dry season
Saam - poison
/au/
Sau - fear
Pyau - gazelle
Sau - to cook
Mau - to stone
Fau - search
/oi/
Noi - nurse me
Koi - reject me
Toi - care for me
Yoi - escort me
/ai/
Kai - house or kind of snake
Nai - my mother
Fai - search for me
Mai - wear
Tai - father
/uu/
Duute - judgement
Kuumni - strenght
Duuni - spring
/ee/
Bee kwan - one hundred
Nee kwan - one thousand
Teeri - scorpion
/u/
Susu - beard
Gum - owl
Fur - stomach
Dute - reign
/u/
Dur - head
Su - grave
Yilu - black
/e/
Wer - stone
Se - bush
Nyele – in-laws
Bwe - child
/i/
Biyir - porridge
Yingi - house fly
Nyibi - seven
/o/
Koro - donkey
Ko - day
Yon - smoke
Out of the 13 vowel sounds 10 are pure vowels:/a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ /o/ /ee/ /aa/ /uu/ /u/ /a/. The first 5 are short vowels while the last 5 are long vowels. The remaining 3 are dipthongs:/ai/ /oi/ /au/. The two vowels, /u/ and /a/ are distinguished from /a/ and /u/ that are both obtained in Hausa and English by the straight line under them which also make them long vowels.
The 26 consonant sounds are represented thus:
/b/ as in bi - goat, bak - arrow, Bwanbi - three, bang - hill
/c/ as in cilu - sweet, cuwa - wine, cimar - money, cimi - friend
/d/ as in dun - knee, di - go, jidari - mat, dugum - blood
/f/ as in figu - new, furtasu - twenty, far - swamp, fan - monkey
/g/ as in gur - pot, lagu - knife, muglo - dove, gano - elephant
/h/ as in ham - look, hanang - skin, he - water
/j/ as in jau - eat, jir - come out, ju - kill
/k/ as in kun - war, kang - hand, kak - face, nukun - six
/l/ as in lamar - navel, sila - tomorrow, yalte - soup
/m/ as in mimi - mosquito, mu - build, mai - wear
/n/ as in nu - eye, na - leg, yinang - medicine, nar - liver
/p/ as in pyau - gazelle, pise - bend, patpat - quickly
/r/ as in teeri - scorpion, dungar - egg, hatar - hyena
/s/ as in suta - buy, susu - beard, kosi - skull, su - ear
/t/ as in tai - father, turum - lion, swete - bed, tirite - bitter
/w/ as in wuman - open, wang - leaf, wurang - tobacco
/y/ as in ya - spear, yak - give to, layuwi - electric fish
/ng/ as in nungan - tooth, yunang - tail, ngari - pig
/ny/ as in nyi - mouth, nyele - in-law, nyelba - lighting, nyibi - seven
/bw/ as in bwal - kind of spear, bwa - hole, bwi - body, bwe - child
/jw/ as in jwi - compound, jwal - kind of stick, jwonte - tamarind
/gw/ as in gwi - climb, gwal - hatch, gwali - sorrel, agwe - here
/kw/ as in kwelam - warriors, kweram - pythorn, kwa - to grind
/mw/ as in mwiya - cut into pieces, mwara - grass for roofing,mwa - run
/pw/ as in pwal - sound from breaking something.
/sw/ as in swete - bed, swiyer - work
All the consonant sounds can occur at word initial and medial, but not all can occur at word end. Only 9 out of the 26 consonant sounds can occur at word final position:
/b/ as in nab - people, dab - to take, kub - to desire.
/p/ as in kap - to turn upside down, lap - to frighten, wup - to pass suddently.
/g/ as in bug - to cultivate, sag - to bring down, jig - to remove.
/k/ as in kak - face, tuk - thorn, buk - back
/m/ as in jum - horn, saam - poison, turum - lion
/n/ as in kun - war, fan - monkey, yin - broom
/ng/ as in yunang-tail, wang-leaf, bang-hill
/l/ as in cul - guinea fowl, yil - dance, mungul - potash
/r/ as in mar - dew, tir - year, dasar - catfish
CHAM BASIC SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Cham has a basic sentence structure thus: sv (subject + verb), svo (subject + verb + object) and svoo (subject + verb + indirect object + direct object) similar to those of English. The following are the examples of Cham basic sentence structure with their English translation.
Ka tau klete. – He caught birds.
S v o s v o
Koro ka jau far. – The donkey ate the grass.
S v o s v o
Kan sau jinijauri. – I cook food.
S v o s v o
Rhada ne nai kaita jiyu. – Rhoda gave her mother their house.
S v i.o d.o s v i.o d.o
Peace ne Simon nee frangte. – Peace gave Simon one billion.
S v i.o d.o s v i.o d.o
Kata di. – They go.
S v s v
Kwanyu yi yilang. – Kwanyu dances.
S v s v
Kanan mwaa sak. – We run.
S v s v
Ka mauwuri. – She shouts.
S v s v
Chapter Four
CONCLUSION
It is lucid from the data presented that many of the world’s languages are facing serious thread everyday. Thread in form of language endangerment, language shift and language extinction. This situation is further compounded as the necessities of living keep on surfacing in all ramifications of human activities forcing people to make choices that sometimes are inimical to the survival of their language. Human beings are a central factor, an imperative and vital instrument that ensures the existence or otherwise of a language. The correlation between humans and language is such that one can not be divorce from the other without serious negative impact on each. This is particularly so because the two are mutually interdependent on each other with a serious bound that determine the completeness of each other. Indeed, when humans are devoid of language they have being rendered less human because language plays pivotal role in their existentialism. Likewise it becomes totally difficult if not impossible for a language to exist without human beings making adequate use of it in their daily activities.
A significant negative effect with a deadly impact on the survival of a language happens when the functions performed by a language is reduced to some meager events in the community. This condition comes up when other language considered to be of higher prestige is used to substitute the varied roles previously played by the former language. These situations as has being discussed earlier mitigate the efficacy of the former language which subsequently leads it to an endangered position.
It is without doubt every language is inherently imbued with inept ability to express its surroundings, environment and every thing that is within and around it. No language is in it self except that as it is forced on it by it speakers. To a large extent therefore, the users of a language are responsible to the growth or devaluation of their language. Every language has the requisite credential to live successfully and operate well unless when its users decide to make it play a second fiddle.
Consequently, all endangered languages like Cham needs to be revitalized and put back to track by their very people, so that its full utility will be well harness and exploited not only for the benefit of sons and daughters lf the immediate language users but also for the benefit of the world’s linguistic canon. Otherwise, these languages risk extinction and the people will wake-up one day without defining who they are, without knowing their true identity and without any sense of their historic pass that will help them shape them their present and prepare them for the future.
RECOMMENDATION
There is a need, an urgent one to inform local people and indeed people in general, but particularly the younger generation by the authority’s responsible federal, state and local level that it never pays for one to draw his language to the dustbin while embracing other language for the sake of whatever it possesses. They should be well conscientized to come to the awareness that their indigenous language is their means of identity and pride because within it lies their beliefs, cultures and value system. Learning another language is not evil, but caution should be exercise that it does not or replace or take away their indigenous language.
Traditional institutions should be at the centre of this; they should inform their people to be mindful of the fact that their local language can give them the progress and advancement they need if they make it to. If other languages can, theirs too can; this is because the intrinsic values of all languages are the same. China and other Asian countries are not known today because they speak English or French, but because of how they are able to use the property of their language to engineer creativity and productivity among themselves.
Finally, it is also recommended that government should make it compulsory for the teaching and learning of an indigenous language in its primary community. This will help in the propagation of the language as children grow and socialize in it. The language should not only serve as a course of study, but also as a means of instruction since it is globally acknowledged that children learn faster in their own language. In this regard, government (using the prominent members of the society) should encourage the production of relevant literatures in the language so as to serve the purpose of preservation, reading, writing and learning in the language. If you can not operate in your language, then you are not fully empowered.
REFERENCE
Carmen Lla mas, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell. (2007). The Routledge Companion of Sociolinguistics. London and New york, Routledge.
David, Crystal. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. New york, Cambridge University Press.
Dough, Whalen and K. David Harrison. (200). The World’s Endangered Languages. Encarta Yearbook.
D. C. Anthony Woodbury. (2006). Endangered Language. Retrieved from http://www/sadc.org/infor/ling-fags-endanger.cmf. On 02/02/2011.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 16th ed. Retrieved from http://www.ethnologue.com/show-country.asp?name=Nigeria. On 15th/01/2011.
Greenberg J.H. (1963). Languages of Africa. Bloomington, Indian University Press.
Juliette Blevins. Endangered Sound Patterns: Three Perspectives on Theory and Description. Vol. 1. Retrieved from http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii-education/htm/10125/1721/blevins.html. On 15th/01/2011.
Krauss, Michael E. (2007). Keynote-Mass Language Extinction and Documentation: The Pace Agaist Time. London, Oxford University Press.
Nikolaus P. Himmelman. (1998). Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Berlin, de Gruyter.
R.I. Trusk. (1995). Language: The Basics. 2nd ed. London and Newyork, Routledge.
Miyim, Albert, Albashi. (1990). The Socio-cultural Impact of the Missionary Activities in Cham District of Balanga Local Government of Bauchi State. (unpublished) Final Essay. Department of Christian Religious Studies, A.B.U. Zaria.
Philipp, Strazny. Ed. Encyclopedia of Linguistics.vol.1.New york, Routledge.
Peter K. Austin. (2008). Top Ten Endangered Languages. Retrieved from http://www.guadian.co.uk/book/2008/August/27/ endangered. Languages. On 23rd/02/2011.
Peter, Trudgill. (1974). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. 4th.ed. England, Penguin.
Storto, L.R. (2003). Interactions Between Verb Movement and Agreement in Kuritiana (Tupi Stock); Revista Letras.60:411-33.
Sascha, Griffiths. (2007). Language Documentation: A Research Seminar on Language Endangerment and Documentation. Canterbury, Oxford.
The Hans Rousing Endangered Languages Project (2009). Retrieved from http://www.hrelp.org/documentation/what is it- what is language documentation. On 22/02/2011.
Unesco and Adhoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages. Language Vitality and Endangerment (pdp)2003. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangered languages. On 27th/4/2011.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)