Fading Delimitations: Language, Culture and Ethno-Linguistics of the Maha in Northeast Nigeria

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The Middle Belt of Nigeria has the highest ethnic and linguistic diversity in Africa. In the Gongola Basin alone, more than 50 languages are spoken, many of them belonging to the Bole-Tangale group of the West Chadic language family. As the most eastern member of the Bole-Tangale group, Maha is of high interest as it borders the typologically very different Central Chadic, Niger-Congo and Nilo- Saharan languages. Preliminary studies indicate that this dramatically understudied language – spoken by about 15.000 people in a typical refuge area east of the Gongola River – exhibits typological properties which allow us to understand the historical relations between the languages of different families in the region. Moreover, their language ideology – conceptualizing the cultural concepts which the multilingual Maha possess in order to distinguish themselves from the neighbouring speaker communities – appears to be of utmost importance in order to understand how the preservation of “typical”, emblematic linguistic features has been achieved. The study of Maha language and its ethno-linguistic environment is an urgent task, since the Maha people are now gradually giving up their ethnic identity, alongside language obsolescence due to massive Hausaization. By looking at the Maha in their relation to the Hausa, Kanuri, Fulani and other dominant ethnic groups surrounding them, we analyze how their location close to the borders of rival empires has influenced their language. In particular, we identify factors which since colonial times have led to a gradual language shift and ethnic conversion. In this process of assimilation mainly to Hausa culture, religion plays a crucial role, since the area has become a borderland between Islam and Christianity.This project is applied for in the framework of a German-Czech bilateral research project, which isregistered under P 406/10/JO68 at the GACR (Grantova Agentura Ceske Republiky/Czech ScienceFoundation).