Wawa
Classification: Niger-Congo
·threatened
Classification: Niger-Congo
·threatened
Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Benue-Congo, Northern Bantoid |
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Information from: “Cultural Ecologies of Endangered Languages: the Case of Wawa and Njanga” (217-238) . Sascha Sebastian Griffiths and Laura Robson (2010)
"There are probably around 2,500 speakers of Wawa (the speaking population has elsewhere been estimated at 3,000 [Lewis 2009])."
"At present, the Wawa are maintaining their language to a large degree. The language is still being transmitted to children, and is spoken on a daily basis and in all contexts except the religious (the Wawa are all Muslim and thus use Arabic in the religious domain). Wawa is an unwritten language and all children are taught to read the Koran. Moreover, cultural changes largely involving assimilation to a Muslim Fulbe way of life mean that Fulfulde can be seen as a potential linguistic threat."
Fulfulde; Arabic; Vute; Mambila; French; English; Hausa
"Although they have not shifted directly to speaking Fulfulde, bilingualism in Fulfulde has increased and its influence on Wawa is notable... The Wawa people are multilingual, with most Wawa people speaking at least Wawa and Fulfulde (the region’s lingua franca) and often other local languages like Vute or Mambila as well. Those who have gone to school also know French. Those who have gone to the secondary school in Banyo may even know English. Hausa serves as a trade language in the area and therefore those Wawa who live and work in town will also have either passive or active proficiency in Hausa. "
"[The Wawa are] autochthonous to the Adamawa Plateau region of Cameroon, a country regarded as both Central African and West African in the literature. The Wawa live in thirteen villages around a town called Banyo, as well as in Banyo itself. The central village of the northern cluster is called Oumyari, and Wawa villages are found on the border with Nigeria"
Information from: “Africa” ( ch. 7) . Gerrit J. Dimmendaal and F. K. Erhard Voeltz (2007) , Christopher Moseley · Routledge
Fulani;
"Mainly west of Banyo in Cameroon with a possible extension into the neighbouring region of Nigeria."
Information from: “An introduction to the Mambiloid languages” (79-92) . Connell, Bruce A. (2001) , Mutaka, Ngessimo M. and Chumbow, Beban Sammy · Rüdiger Köppe Verlag
The language "fulfills all the daily needs of its speakers at the village level."
Information from: “Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th Edition (2009)” . M. Paul Lewis · SIL International
Speaker number data from SIL(1991).
Adamawa Province, Mayo-Banyo Division, Bankim Subdivision, west of Banyo, 13 villages.