The twenty Central Plateau languages are a residual branch of the Plateau family spoken in central Nigeria. Tyap (or Katab) has over 200,000 speakers, and the closely related Jju (or Kaje) has well over 300,000. Hyam (or Jabba) has another 100,000. Cori is famous for being one of very few languages with six tone levels, though only three are needed for writing.
Classification
The Central Plateau languages are a close geographical group with numerous connections; however, they are to some extent a residual group and may be a sprachbund. The following classification is taken from Blench (2008). A distinction between North Plateau and the rest of Central Plateau is possible but appears to be geographic; Gerhardt (1994) argues they belong together.
Each of the second-level bullets is a single language or dialect cluster and is obviously valid. However, most of the first-level groups (Hyamic, North Plateau, Gyongic, Koro) are not self-evident and may continue to be revised.
Blench (2018) splits the Central Plateau languages into a Northwest Plateau group consisting of Eda/Edra, Acro-Obiro (Kuturmi), Kulu, Idon, Doka, Iku-Gora-Ankwe, and a West-Central Plateaulinguistic area consisting of the Rigwe, Tyapic, Izeric, Hyamic, Koro, and Gyongic groups.[1]
Many of the languages, including Jju, were formerly classified as part of a Southern Zaria group in earlier classifications.[1]
Names and locations
Below is a list of language names, populations, and locations from Blench (2019).[2]
Kaduna State, Kachia and Jema’a LGAs. The Shang live in two settlements, Kushampa A and B. Kushampa A is on the road between Kurmin Jibrin and Kubacha on the Jere road.
The Ashe share a common ethnonym with the Tinɔr-Myamya (q.v.) which is Uzar pl. Bazar for the people and Ìzar for the language. This name is the origin of the term Ejar.
Koron Ache
35,000 including Tinɔr-Myamya (Barrett 1972). 8 villages (2008) between Katugal and Kubacha.
The Tinɔr-Myamya peoples actually have no common name for themselves, but refer to individual villages when speaking, and apply noun-class prefixes to the stem.
Begbere-Ejar. The Tinɔr-Myamya share a common ethnonym with the Ashe (q.v.) which is Uzar pl. Bazar for the people and Ìzar for the language. This name is the origin of the term Ejar.
The name Begbere comes from Bàgbwee, a Myamya village, and Ejar from Ìzar (see 2.A). There has been a recent proposal to adopt the name DAWN for Koro as a whole.
^ abBlench, Roger M. 2018. Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages of Central Nigeria. In John R. Watters (ed.), East Benue-Congo: Nouns, pronouns, and verbs, 107–172. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1314325
^Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.