The first reference to the Tiv language (dzwa Tiv) was made by Sigismund Koelle (1854) from liberated slaves from Sierra Leone. Johnston Harry H[3] (1919) classified it as a peculiar language among the Semi-Bantu languages, and Talbot P. Amaury (1926) concurred. Roy Clive Abraham[4][5] (1933), who has made the most complete linguistic study of Tiv, classifies it as Bantu, stating that its vocabulary is more similar to the East African Nyanza group of Bantu languages than to Ekoi or other neighbouring languages. Malherbe (1933) agrees with Abraham that Tiv is essentially Bantu.[6]
All material on Tiv seems to point to a recent expansion, perhaps in the early 15th century.[7]
There are 1900 Tiv households with approximately 20,000 people at the south-western border of Cameroon Manyu division, with Mamfe as its capital, which is 74km away from the south eastern Nigerian border. The paramount ruler is Zaki Abaajul, who has the Tiv and Ulitsi as his subjects. The Cameronian Tiv are well educated and live in Anglophone Cameroon[8] as their ancestral land, while a few others live in the francophone region. They are mostly farmers but others work in the government.[9]
Although some Nigerian tiv people are unaware of some of the Tiv peoples of the Cameroon because of the international border but, these groups always regard themselves as Tiv. Some of them have an additional dialect to the main Tiv language. These Tiv groups are; Bitare, Mesaka, Iyive, Ceve or Becheve, Evant, Eman, Ipulo, Caka etc. They together with the Tiv in Nigeria share the same culture, History, Religion, and Tradition. They are basically the same people.
Dialects
Tiv speakers can understand each other across their territory. Although, the Hyarev people speak some words totally different from others. However, accents (ham) exist.[10]
Tiv has three main tones (five if rising and falling are counted as separate tones instead of composites of existing tones).[13] They are most importantly used in inflection.[6]
Accents
The accents of Tiv are as follows:
Ityoisha, spoken in the southeast, noted for its exaggerated palatalisation of vowels;
Shitile, spoken by most Tiv east of the Katsina Ala River, apparently slower sounding than the other Tiv accents and slurs vowels into their neighbouring consonant;
Iharev, which gives an exaggerated roll to the phoneme [r]~[l]
Kparev, spoken in the centre and south-centre;
Kunav, a sub-group of Kparev, noted for its preference for [d͡ʒ] sounds where other Kparev use [d͡z].[6]
Vocabulary, particularly plant and tool names, changes from one part of Tiv territory to the other.[14]
R.C.Abraham, A Dictionary of the Tiv Language, Government of Nigeria 1940, republished by Gregg Press Ltd., Farnborough, Hants., England 1968. ISBN0576116157
