Kwah language

For the Indian language also known as Ba, see Aka-Bo language.
Not to be confused with Kwa languages or Kwaʼ language.
Kwah
Baa
nyaa Báà
Native toNigeria
RegionNuman LGA, Adamawa State
Native speakers
(7,000 cited 1992)[1]
Dialects
  • Gyakan
  • Kwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3kwb
Glottologkwaa1262
Báà[2]
PersonraBáà
PeopleBáà
Languagenyaa Báà

Kwah (Kwa), also known as Baa (Bàː[3]), is a Niger–Congo language of uncertain affiliation; the more it has been studied, the more divergent it appears. Joseph Greenberg counted it as one of the Bambukic languages of the Adamawa family. Boyd (1989) assigned it its own branch within Waja–Jen. Kleinewillinghöfer (1996) removed it from Waja–Jen as an independent branch of Adamawa. When Blench (2008) broke up Adamawa, Kwah became a provisional independent branch of his larger Savannas family.

Blench (2019) lists the locations of Baa as Gyakan and Kwa towns (located near Munga) in Numan LGA, Adamawa State, Nigeria. One Baa-speaking person (singular) is raBáà (sg.), and more than one would be Báà (pl.); the language is referred to by speakers as nyaa Báà.[2] The Baa varieties in each of the two towns differ primarily in phonology.[4]

Baa traditional religion has two main deities, Gbandima and Kassimin.[5]

  1. ^ Kwah at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b Blench, Roger (2019). An Atlas of Nigerian Languages (4th ed.). Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.
  3. ^ Idiatov, Dmitry, Mark Van de Velde, Tope Olagunju and Bitrus Andrew. 2017. Results of the first AdaGram survey in Adamawa and Taraba States, Nigeria. 47th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) (Leiden, Netherlands).
  4. ^ Baa (Kwa). Adamawa Languages Project.
  5. ^ Möller Nwadigo, Mirjam. Baa. AdaGram.