Tiv (language)
| Tiv (language) | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Southeast Nigeria | |
| speaker | 2,210,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
Niger-Congo
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
tiv |
|
The Tiv language is spoken by over 6 million people (including second speakers), mostly in Nigeria and a few in Cameroon .
As a mother tongue, the language is spoken by the Tiv people. Most of the Nigerian speakers of the language are located in the state of Benue . The language is also spoken in the Nigerian states of Plateau , Taraba , Nasarawa and by migrants in Abuja . It is part of the tivoid languages within the southern bantoid languages .
Tiv has twelve nominal classes , which are marked by prefixes and suffixes, four of which are purely tonal. Tiv is, like most Bantu languages, a tonal language .
Linguistic exploration of the Tiv began as early as 1854 when the Anglican Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther recorded a word list of the Tiv. In 1932 the first Tiv English dictionary appeared in Lagos . The Briton Roy Clive Abraham published a Tiv grammar in 1933, as well as a dictionary and a comprehensive study in four volumes in 1940. The Bible was translated in Tiv in the 1960s.
- Words in Tiv
- Lord Mayor: Gate
- Second Mayor Ter
- Parish council: Tyoor
- Head of the village: Mbateregh
- Tax collector: Ator a Ukpande
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ethnologue . Retrieved January 30, 2011.
- ^ Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Wilhelm JG Möhlig (ed.): Lexicon of African Studies. Reimer, Berlin 1983, p. 244