Laka of Lau is the only Central Sudanic language spoken in Nigeria. It is most closely related to Kabba Laka of Chad. The Hausa refer to the Laka people of Lau as Lakawa. The language was only recently documented in the mid-2010s, and had been previously misclassified as a Mbum language along with Lau.[2][3]
| Lau Laka | |
|---|---|
| Laka | |
| Native to | Nigeria |
| Region | Lau LGA, Taraba State |
Language family | Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | lak (deprecated)[1] |
| Glottolog | laka1252 |
| IETF | ksp-NG |
Laka speakers live in Laka ward of Lau LGA (Hausa: Angawan Lakawa; formerly Garin Lakawa ‘Laka town’), Taraba State, eastern Nigeria.[2] They live alongside the Win Lau (or Lau proper; formerly Lau Habe), who are Jukunoid speakers.[4]
The following table compares Laka (Lau) and Laka (Chad), both of which are Central Sudanic languages, with Lau proper, a Jukunoid language.[2]
| English | Laka (Lau) | Laka (Chad) | Lau proper |
|---|---|---|---|
| animal | dā | /dā/ | nɛ̃́wkũ̂ |
| cow | mã̀ŋgɨ̄ | /màngɨ̄/ | nâw |
| chicken | kũ̄nʤá | /kūnʤá/ | zǟw |
| man | ʤĩ̀ŋgàw | /ʤìngàw/ | jĩ̂nə̀nwò |
| medicine | kũ̀mā | /kùmā/ | gâj |
Central Sudanic languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bongo–Bagirmi |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birri–Kresh |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lendu–Mangbetu |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mimi-D | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italics indicate extinct languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||