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Aspects Of Yukuben Morphology
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As given by “Ethnologue:- Languages of the Worldâ€, in 1992, the speakers
of Yukuben language had a total population of 15,000 in Nigeria only
and about 1,000 in Cameroon. In 1994, another population census was
conducted, and the result given was that, the speakers of this language
was 23,000 in Nigeria and 2,000 in Cameroon and other countries of the
world. We had another census, and the native speakers of Yukuben
language claimed to have increased. As given by the informant, he said
they are now more than 500,000.
As a result of inter-tribal
marriages, the population of the speakers of Yukuben language increased.
With this, the population of the native speakers of Yukuben language;
according to the first report, was about 25,000, while the later report
which was a recent report which could be probably be present
approximated population of the Yukuben says it has increased to half a
million.
Below is a map showing the geographical location of the speakers of Yukuben language.
1.3 GENETIC CLASSIFICATION
Yukuben
language belongs to the Niger-Kordofanian family by the way of the
African language classification. Other classes of language family are
Nilo Saharan, Khoisan, and the Afro-Asiatic families. Niger Kordofanian
is a family of the sub-Saharan African language. it has about
100,000,000 speakers of different languages.
Some linguists argues
that the Benue Congo in which Yukuben belong and the Kwa language family
belong to the same group, that is a single branch of the Niger Congo
family. Nevertheless, for the sake of this study, Yukuben is known as a
Benue Congo group of languages according to Comrie (1987).
In
conclusion, Yukuben is genetically classified as a version of one of the
Benue Congo group and finally traced up to the Niger-Kordofanian family
of the African languages classification.
Below is a diagram illustrating the genetic classification of Yukuben language.
Niger Kordofanian
Niger Congo Kordofanian
West Atlantic Mande Gur Kwa Benue Congo Adamawa Ubangian
Plateau Jukunoid Cross River Bantoid
Yukuben
1.4 SOCIO-LINGUISTIC PROFILE
The
Yukuben speaking community has peculiarities as far as occupation is
concerned, with close relationship with the family head of Yukuben
language at Kuteb. There is a close link between them and among most of
the speakers of all the languages emanating from Kuteb.
With the few
relationship the Yukuben had with the Kuteb before they splitted, their
social life was affected and they took on some socio-cultural
characteristics or features of the Kuteb people.
There is a
concentration of the Yukuben language speaking community on farming.
This is the major occupation found in the community. Large percentage of
the language speakers are involved in farming. Farming of several
forms, such as crop farming like, tuber (yam, cassava etc.),grains
(rice, guinea corn, maize, etc.) and little vegetables (okro, pepper,
etc.).
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