CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

1.2 Problem statement

1.3 Research Questions

1.4 Research Hypotheses

1.5 Research Objectives

1.6 Significance of the study

1.6 Scope of Study

This work entitled “A Comparative Study of reduplication in Kenyang and Ejagham” will be divided into five chapters. This study describes the Kenyang and Ejagham languages focusing on a comparison of their Reduplicated forms. It seeks to identify the various forms of reduplication and compare them. It is a descriptive survey of forms of reduplication and how tones behave both languages when reduplication occurs.

This study mentioned is based on lower Kenyang spoken in the Western part of the language area Mamfe central sub-division, this study uses only one variety of western Ejagham language called(;Kéàke)

This study describes the Kenyang and Ejagham languages focusing on a comparison of their reduplicated forms.

This study compares the tonal behavior of both Kenyang and Ejagham language.

1.7 Significant of Study

To the researcher, this work will serve as a validation to obtain a master’s degree as it is a requirement for one to be awarded a Masters of Arts degree in theoretical Linguistics. To the Linguistics society, it will help in ease language learning, language teaching, this is, providing pedagogical materials for mother tongue Education in Kenyang and Ejagham.

It will help towards the documentation and potentially revitalization of the Kenyang language.

1.8 Historical Background

Kenyang speakers originated from Keaka in the East of Eyumojock and settled in the upper bayang region. Migrants from other tribes like the Kifuni (Balong people) and Mundoni (Bangwa) settled in Manyu as a result of tribal wars and trade attractions making the bayang society a mixture of migrants and indigenes. In 1935/1936, Itmann, German missionary analysed Kenyang grammar and phonology.

       On the other hand, the Ejagham language, also known as Ekoi, is an Ekoid language of Nigeria and Cameroon spoken by the Ekoi people. The Ekoi have lived closely with the nearby Efik and are traditionally organized into 7 clans. Annang , Ibibio and Igbo people of Southeastern Nigeria. The Ekoi people believe that the heirs of the first settlers of their present settlement own the land.

1.9 Geographical background

Kenyang is the most spoken language of the Mamfe language group. It is spoken in the Manyu and Meme sub-divisions of the Southwest Region of Cameroon. Kenyang speakers in Cameroon are known as Bayangi people and are called Bayangi. Kenyang has total native speakers of about 65,000 as was estimated in 1992. The natives call themselves Manyang. They occupy 53 villages in the Mamfe central Sub-Division and the upper Banyang Sub-division.

     On the other hand, the Ejagham language is an Ekoid language of Nigeria and Cameroon spoken by the Ekoi people. Statistics have shown that Ejagham has total native speakers of about 120,000 (2000). It falls under the Niger-Congo language family The Ekoi in Nigeria is found in Cross River- State. In Cameroon, the Ejaghams are found in the southwestern region of the country. In the Ejagham community, we also find the use of the English language as seen in Blench (2019).

1.10 The Socio-Economic Background

The Kenyang speakers are known as the bayangyi, banyang and baying. The natives are however referred to as the manyang (Mbuagbaw, 1998). Population statics from other Mamfe rural council (1987) estimates the speakers to be about 60.628, occupying a total of 53 villages in Mamfe central. A majority of the native population are subsistence farmers, who grow food crops like; cocoyam, maize, cassava, plantains just to name a few alongside cash crops like; cocoa and coffee.

While, Ejagham is an Ekoid Bantu language spoken by the Bayangi people who share a close boundary with Nigeria. According to Grimes (2005), Ejagham speakers sum up to about “60,000 to 70,000 speakers in (South East) Nigeria and 45,000 to 50,000 in (South West) Cameroon. Ejagham villages are built near rivers or streams. Around the village are crops and beyond that lays forests. The people are involved in subsistence farming which include food crops like; grains, corn, sweet potato, cassava, banana, and other vegetables. They also involve in protein-lipid sources like; fish, buffalo, pythons and crocodile. Neither men nor women are allowed to feed on scavenger birds like vultures; the kingfisher bird is also a forbidden food. All the above information’s are present in Blench (2019).

1.11     Linguistic classification

Kenyang and Ejagham are both languages belonging to the big Niger-Kordefanian language which has four main families; the Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afro- Asiatic and Khoisan languages of which languages from the first three are present in Cameroon. Kenyang and Ejagham classification in a descending order is as follows; Niger Congo family, Volta congo; sub-branch of Atlantic Congo branch, Benue Congo family, Bantoid group. The whole of Kenyang belongs to the Northern Bantoid sub-group and Ejagham is of the Southern Bantoid family. The linguistic tree diagram of both languages is as follows.

Definition of Key Term 

Reduplication is a morphological process that involves repeating phonological material that is either a word or part of a word, stem, or root to achieve a new grammatical or semantic function (Rubino, 2005:1) and where the repeated materials is directly derivable from inflected or underived base form

Total Reduplication, full reduplication occurs where the entire word stem or root is full repeated.

Partial Reduplication is when only a part of a word, stem or root is being repeated. There are many types of partial reduplication and words can be created with partial reduplication in several different way that is by repeating a part at the beginning, end or inside the simplex form or by other means such as Consonant Germination or Vowel lengthening (Rubino, 2005:11)

1.13 Organisation of Thesis

This thesis contains five chapters. Chapter one is an overview of the study in which the background to the study, problem statement, research questions, aim and objectives, geographical and linguistic classification of the language, socio-cultural information of Kenyang and Ejagham history, as well as delimitation of scope and operational definition of frequent terms are discussed. Lastly, it is followed by an outline of the thesis and chapter conclusion.

Chapter two contains review of related literature (works done in this area of study and language under investigation) and theoretical framework, and an overview of relevant phonetics ,phonology and Morphology as well as an overview of theories relevant to this study

Chapter three handles the methodology which contains the research design and

Method, validity check on the data considerations, and techniques of-data collection procedures, and data analysis.

Chapter four carries the analysis and presentation and analyses-of the result of the

Research it is the main chapter. These results are presented according to the specific

Research sub-questions posed in chapter one this study.

An account of reduplication features identified research result is done, exploiting the insights of given using Morpheme Doubling Theory (MDT) 

Finally, chapter five, the last chapter is a general conclusions the entire research program. It discusses and compares the two accents in relation to the literature.