lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Tiv is a Tivoid language spoken in some states in North Central Nigeria, with some speakers in Cameroon. It had over 5 million speakers in 2020. The largest population of Tiv speakers are found in Benue state in Nigeria. The language is also widely spoken in the Nigerian states of Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa and Cross River as well as the FCT Abuja. It is by far the largest of the Tivoid languages, a group of languages belonging to the Southern Bantoid languages

Tiv
Tiv
Region	Central Nigeria
Ethnicity	Tiv people
Native speakers	5 million (2020)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Tivoid Central Tivoid(A) Tiv
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tiv
ISO 639-3	tiv
Glottolog	tivv1240

Dialects

Tiv has no dialects. Tiv speakers can understand each other across their territory. However, accents (ham) exist.[2]

Phonology

Vowels

Short vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	ɔ
Open	a	ɒ

Long vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Near-close	ɪː		ʊː
Mid			oː
Open-mid		ɜː	ɔː
Open		aː

• Vowel sounds are phonetically nasalized before nasal consonants.
• /a/ can be freely heard as [æ̃] or [ɑ̃] before a nasal consonant.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar			Glottal
							plain	lab.	pal.
Stop	voiceless	p		t			k	kʷ	kʲ
	voiced	b		d			ɡ	ɡʷ	ɡʲ
	prenasal	ᵐb		ⁿd
Affricate	voiceless			t͡s	t͡ʃ		k͡p
	voiced			(d͡z)	d͡ʒ		ɡ͡b
	prenasal			ⁿd͡z
Fricative	voiceless		f	s	ʃ		(x)			h
	voiced		v	z			ɣ
Nasal		m	(ɱ)	n		ɲ	ŋ
Trill				r
Approximant		w		l		j

• /ɣ/ is heard phonetically as [x], but is often voiced as [ɣ].
• [ɱ] is heard in free variation in word-final positions.
• [d͡z] occurs in other dialects.[3]

Tone

Tiv has three main tones (five if rising and falling are counted as separate tones instead of composites of existing tones). They are most importantly used in inflection.[2]

Accents

The accents of Tiv are as follows:

• Ityoisha, spoken in the southeast, noted for its exaggerated palatalisation of vowels;
• Shitile, spoken by most Tiv east of the Katsina Ala River, apparently slower sounding than the other Tiv accents and slurs vowels into their neighbouring consonant;
• Iharev, which gives an exaggerated roll to the phoneme [r]~[l]
• Kparev, spoken in the centre and south-centre;
  • Kunav, a sub-accent of Kparev, noted for its preference for [d͡ʒ] sounds where other Kparev use [d͡z].[2]

Vocabulary, particularly plant and tool names, changes from one part of Tiv territory to the other.[2]

History and classification

[4] The first reference to the Tiv language (dzwa Tiv) was made by Koelle (1854) from liberated slaves from Sierra Leone. Johnston (1919) classified it as a peculiar language among the Semi-Bantu languages, and Talbot (1926) concurred. Abraham (1933), who has made the most complete linguistic study of Tiv, classifies it as Bantu, stating that its vocabulary is more similar to the East African Nyanza group of Bantu languages than to Ekoi or other neighbouring languages. Malherbe (1933) agrees with Abraham that Tiv is essentially Bantu.[2]

All material on Tiv seems to point to a recent expansion, perhaps in the early 15th century.[5]

Morphology

Tiv has nine noun classes.[2]

See also

• Tiv people
• Ate-u-tiv, a traditional Tiv hut used for reception and gathering

References

• R.C.Abraham, A Dictionary of the Tiv Language, Government of Nigeria 1940, republished by Gregg Press Ltd., Farnborough, Hants., England 1968. ISBN 0576116157

External links

• Tiv-English Dictionary
• PanAfrican L10n page on Tiv

Religious materials

• Video and audio files, New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures Released and other bible study material in Tiv Language by Jehovah's Witnesses
• The bible in the tiv language
• Gospel
• Jesus film in tiv

На других языках

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[de] Tiv (Sprache)

Die Tiv-Sprache wird (einschließlich Zweitsprachler) von über 6 Millionen Menschen gesprochen, überwiegend in Nigeria und vereinzelt auch in Kamerun.

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- [en] Tiv language

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[es] Idioma tiv

Tiv es un grupo etno-lingüístico o nación étnica de África Occidental. Los tiv constituyen aproximadamente el 2,5% de la población total de Nigeria, más de 6 millones de individuos entre Nigeria y Camerún.[1] Las tierras tradicionales de Tiv están en los estados nigerianos de Benue, Taraba, Adamawa y Nasarawa en Nigeria Oriental.

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[fr] Tiv (langue)

Le tiv est une langue tivoïde parlée au Nigeria et au Cameroun par plus de 2 millions de personnes, les Tiv, en particulier dans le sud-est du Nigeria.

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[it] Lingua tiv

La lingua tiv è una lingua bantoide dell'Africa subsahariana; viene parlato da circa 2,2 milioni di persone (dati del 1991) stanziate nella parte orientale della Nigeria, presso il confine con il Camerun (stato di Benue);[2] alcuni locutori risiedono invece in Camerun.[1]

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[ru] Тив

Тив — один из бантоидных языков группы тив (тивоидной). Входит в число десяти наиболее распространённых языков Нигерии (официальный язык штата Бенуэ), язык тив охватывает территорию от среднего течения реки Бенуэ до приграничных с Камеруном районов к юго-востоку. Число говорящих свыше 2,2 млн чел. (1991)[1].Включает две группы диалектов. К первой относятся: балегете и бату. Ко второй: або, бечеве, битаре;

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