Videos by Michael Bulkaam
This video is on verbal plurality in Tal which was presented at the 11th Biennial International C... more This video is on verbal plurality in Tal which was presented at the 11th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic languages (BICCL) based on a section of Bulkaam's (2022) MA thesis submitted to TCNN. The video shows plural verbs in the Tal language in relation to other West Chadic languages in Nigeria. It features briefly the following languages; Teel, Mwaghavul both of A3 West Chadic, and others that are other than A3 include; Hausa, Bole, Ron-Kulere, Ngizim, Miya and Zaar. 5 views
Papers by Michael Bulkaam
This paper presents basic data on the Mantsi language spoken southeast of Bauchi town in a single... more This paper presents basic data on the Mantsi language spoken southeast of Bauchi town in a single village. Previously the language was known only from a short wordlist and a manuscript by Cosper, which appears to have substantial errors. Mantsi is related to Kir and Lar, part of West South Bauchi. It has a rich consonant inventory compared with some neighbouring South Bauchi languages, the usual six vowels with length contrast, and three tone heights. A brief section compares the lexicon of Mantsi with related languages.
This is an introduction and basic phonology, orthography proposal and a short dictionary of Belnə... more This is an introduction and basic phonology, orthography proposal and a short dictionary of Belnəng, a previously undocumented language in southern Plateau State, Nigeria. Belnəng is part of West Chadic, A3, and the paper presents evidence for its affiliation within the A3 group. The phonology is simplified, like northern languages such as Mwaghavul, without the secondary stop and fricative series characteristic of the neighbouring Tal. Although the Belnəng claim cultural links with the Ngas, linguistically, this is not supported by the lexical data. Belnəng shows some lexical influence from Tal immediately to the east and Miship to the west. However, the presence of idiosyncratic lexical items suggests the possibility that Belnəng is a remnant of former languages spoken in the area now settled by the expanding Tal. The paper argues that Belnəng should be identified as a distinct language and thus assigned an ISO code.
This is an introduction and basic phonology, orthography proposal and a short dictionary of Jakat... more This is an introduction and basic phonology, orthography proposal and a short dictionary of Jakato, a previously undocumented language in southern Plateau State, Nigeria. Jakato is part of West Chadic, A3, and the paper presents evidence for its affiliation within the A3 group. Although the Jakato claim cultural links with the Goemai, linguistically, they are closest to the PAN (Kofyar cluster). They also show some lexical influence from Koenoem, a Talic language, immediately to the west. However, the phonology is simplified, with secondary stop and fricative series, like north languages such as Mwaghavul. The paper argues that Jakato should be identified as a distinct languge and thus assigned an ISO code.
This is an introduction and basic phonology and wordlist of Jibyal, a previously undocumented lan... more This is an introduction and basic phonology and wordlist of Jibyal, a previously undocumented language in eastern Nasarawa State, Nigeria. It is part of West Chadic, A3, and is probably most closely related to the Pan cluster, Kofyar etc. However, it shows some phonological features of the ‘Southern’ languages such as Tal, including an aspirate series. The paper presents a tentative phonology and a wordlist, as well as evidence for affiliation with the Pan cluster.
This is an overview of the ethnoscientific vocabulary of the Tal language, part of the West Chadi... more This is an overview of the ethnoscientific vocabulary of the Tal language, part of the West Chadic A3 cluster. The Tal language has been barely studied, so the list gives a strict IPA-like transcription as well as an orthographic list. The closest relatives of Tal are Koenoem and Pyapung, also unstudied.
Dictionaries by Michael Bulkaam
This is a preliminary dictionary of the Tal language, spoken southeast of Jos in Plateau State, C... more This is a preliminary dictionary of the Tal language, spoken southeast of Jos in Plateau State, Central Nigeria. Tal is a West Chadic language of the A3 cluster, and bears some similarities to Mwaghavul, Ngas and Goemai. However, it is marked by a phonology rich in contrasts, unlike other related languages. The dictionary provides both orthographic representation and strict International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)-like forms. This version has so far few example sentences, as these will be added in a further edition. It is also being circulated as an Android phone app.
Talks by Michael Bulkaam
Jos Linguistic Circle, 2021
A3 languages also known as Ngas-Sura are West Chadic languages closely related to each other. The... more A3 languages also known as Ngas-Sura are West Chadic languages closely related to each other. They are found in the south of Plateau state, central Nigeria. These languages employ a system of plural verbs similar to neighbouring Plateau languages such as Berom, Izere, Tarok etc. This paper describes and analyses the formation of plural verbs in the A3 languages. The main strategies in general for the formation of plural verbs in all the A3 languages are; patalisation, labialisation, suppletion, suffixing of a syllable and a possible vowel stem change. Some languages in this group with complex phonology such as Ywom, Tal and Teel [=Tehl, Montol] also employ velarisation in the plurals but others with a simpler phonology seem to employ suffixing a CVC syllable instead. The usages of plural verbs in these languages are categorised as follows;
an action performed severally by a singular or plural subject (iterative),
an action performed by multiple subjects (distributive),
an action performed on multiple objects (distributive)
and describing the intensity of an action.
In as much as these languages have plural verbs, not all of them have the same number; some have few and some have more. The concluding part of this paper focuses on the relevance of plural verbs in the A3 languages for literacy and Bible translation with an evaluation of how they have been handled in the translation of the scriptures. An accurate translation and literacy development cannot be achieved for any language without attention to this type of morphosyntax.
Conference Presentations by Michael Bulkaam
International and Interdisciplinary Conference on African Pre-Colonial History, 2021
The archaeological map of Africa and hence its economic and environmental history remains extreme... more The archaeological map of Africa and hence its economic and environmental history remains extremely patchy. Central Nigeria remains largely unexplored, with the exception of the excavations in the Nok region. One tool available for filling some of these lacunae is comparative linguistics. This has remained largely unexplored due to the large number of languages and the absence of lexical and descriptive data.
Since the year 2016, the authors have surveyed the A3 West Chadic language area with a particular focus on plants and animals. It is now thought that there are around 23 languages in this group, all located in Plateau state, Central Nigeria. Some of these were encountered for the first time during the survey (Blench 2018). Some of the better-known languages include Ngas, Mwaghavul and Goemai, but even for these, lexical documentation remains weak. It is now possible to present reconstructed terms for a wide range of economic plants and animals, both wild and domestic, as well as key economic terms such as ‘iron’ and agricultural tools.
The A3 languages form a coherent territorial bloc and it therefore seems likely they began their expansion in their current area. Linguistically, they are remarkably different from their Chadic neighbours, having undergone massive reduction of morphology as well as showing significant lexical innovation. From the reconstructions we can conclude that;
a) given the levels of similarity between the languages, their expansion is likely to have begun in the last 1000 years
b) at this point they were well-established rainfed subsistence farmers, cultivating the crops typical of the subhumid zone; millet, sorghum, cowpeas etc.
c) they also kept cattle (dwarf taurines), goats, sheep and chickens, but horses and donkeys were subsequently introduced
d) smelted iron was already known to speakers, together with the principal types of agricultural tool
The conclusion looks out to beyond A3 to the other branches of West Chadic to explore the ultimate time-depth of reconstructed forms.
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Videos by Michael Bulkaam
Papers by Michael Bulkaam
Dictionaries by Michael Bulkaam
Talks by Michael Bulkaam
an action performed severally by a singular or plural subject (iterative),
an action performed by multiple subjects (distributive),
an action performed on multiple objects (distributive)
and describing the intensity of an action.
In as much as these languages have plural verbs, not all of them have the same number; some have few and some have more. The concluding part of this paper focuses on the relevance of plural verbs in the A3 languages for literacy and Bible translation with an evaluation of how they have been handled in the translation of the scriptures. An accurate translation and literacy development cannot be achieved for any language without attention to this type of morphosyntax.
Conference Presentations by Michael Bulkaam
Since the year 2016, the authors have surveyed the A3 West Chadic language area with a particular focus on plants and animals. It is now thought that there are around 23 languages in this group, all located in Plateau state, Central Nigeria. Some of these were encountered for the first time during the survey (Blench 2018). Some of the better-known languages include Ngas, Mwaghavul and Goemai, but even for these, lexical documentation remains weak. It is now possible to present reconstructed terms for a wide range of economic plants and animals, both wild and domestic, as well as key economic terms such as ‘iron’ and agricultural tools.
The A3 languages form a coherent territorial bloc and it therefore seems likely they began their expansion in their current area. Linguistically, they are remarkably different from their Chadic neighbours, having undergone massive reduction of morphology as well as showing significant lexical innovation. From the reconstructions we can conclude that;
a) given the levels of similarity between the languages, their expansion is likely to have begun in the last 1000 years
b) at this point they were well-established rainfed subsistence farmers, cultivating the crops typical of the subhumid zone; millet, sorghum, cowpeas etc.
c) they also kept cattle (dwarf taurines), goats, sheep and chickens, but horses and donkeys were subsequently introduced
d) smelted iron was already known to speakers, together with the principal types of agricultural tool
The conclusion looks out to beyond A3 to the other branches of West Chadic to explore the ultimate time-depth of reconstructed forms.
an action performed severally by a singular or plural subject (iterative),
an action performed by multiple subjects (distributive),
an action performed on multiple objects (distributive)
and describing the intensity of an action.
In as much as these languages have plural verbs, not all of them have the same number; some have few and some have more. The concluding part of this paper focuses on the relevance of plural verbs in the A3 languages for literacy and Bible translation with an evaluation of how they have been handled in the translation of the scriptures. An accurate translation and literacy development cannot be achieved for any language without attention to this type of morphosyntax.
Since the year 2016, the authors have surveyed the A3 West Chadic language area with a particular focus on plants and animals. It is now thought that there are around 23 languages in this group, all located in Plateau state, Central Nigeria. Some of these were encountered for the first time during the survey (Blench 2018). Some of the better-known languages include Ngas, Mwaghavul and Goemai, but even for these, lexical documentation remains weak. It is now possible to present reconstructed terms for a wide range of economic plants and animals, both wild and domestic, as well as key economic terms such as ‘iron’ and agricultural tools.
The A3 languages form a coherent territorial bloc and it therefore seems likely they began their expansion in their current area. Linguistically, they are remarkably different from their Chadic neighbours, having undergone massive reduction of morphology as well as showing significant lexical innovation. From the reconstructions we can conclude that;
a) given the levels of similarity between the languages, their expansion is likely to have begun in the last 1000 years
b) at this point they were well-established rainfed subsistence farmers, cultivating the crops typical of the subhumid zone; millet, sorghum, cowpeas etc.
c) they also kept cattle (dwarf taurines), goats, sheep and chickens, but horses and donkeys were subsequently introduced
d) smelted iron was already known to speakers, together with the principal types of agricultural tool
The conclusion looks out to beyond A3 to the other branches of West Chadic to explore the ultimate time-depth of reconstructed forms.