Cham-mona (languages)

The Cham Mona language distribution area is located in eastern Nigeria on the border of the Adamava-Ubangian and Chad languages . The ranges of the tongues of dikak and tso border each other - the range of the tongue of dikak is located in the eastern part of the general range, the range of the tongue is in the western. The territory of the spread of the Cham-Mon languages ​​is surrounded by the areas of closely related Adamava-Ubangan languages ​​such as Vaja , Longood , Kwa , Kyak , Dadiya and Tula . In the east, the area of ​​the Central Chadian Bachama language is adjacent to the area of ​​Cham-mon. Inside the range of the DJ dialect is the range of the isolated Jala language ^[4] .

The total number of speakers of the Cham-mon languages, according to estimates of different years, is about 41,000 people. The most widespread number of speakers is the dikak language, which is spoken by about 25,000 people (1998) ^[5] . About 16,000 people speak the Tso language (1992) ^[6] .

According to the Ethnologue website, according to the degree of preservation , the dikak language belongs to the so-called developing languages ^[5] , and the tso language is classified as stable ^[6] .

The cham-mon subgroup stands out in the classification of Adamava-Ubangian languages, presented in the Ethnologue directory of world languages . Together with the Avak and Tula subgroups, as well as the Dadiya language, the Cham-mon subgroup is part of the Vaja group of the Vaja-jen branch of the Adamava Adamava-Ubangian family ^[3] .

In the classification of R. Blench, the languages ​​of the Cham-mon subgroup are contrasted within the framework of the Vaja group to the union of the Viyya languages, including the languages ​​of the Tula and Avak subgroups, as well as the Dadiya language. The waja group is included in the classification of R. Blench directly in the subfamily of the Adamava of the Adamava-Ubangian family ^[7] .

According to the classification of W. Kleinewillinghöfer given in the database of world languages , Cham-mon languages ​​do not form a separate subgroup. The language of dikak (digim-bwilim) together with the languages ​​of Bangwindzhi , Dadiya and Tula make up a linguistic unity - nuclear Tula. The tso language forms a separate branch, which, together with the linguistic clusters nuclear tula and avak-kamo, is consistently included in the following linguistic associations: languages ​​of tula, languages ​​of tula-vaja, languages ​​of vaja-jen, languages ​​of central gurus and languages ​​of gurus . The latter, together with the Adamava-Ubangian languages ​​and the languages ​​Gbaya-Manza-Ngbaka, form a union of the northern Volta-Congolese languages ^[8] .

In a number of studies of the Adamava-Ubangian languages, some of the idioms of the dikak and tso languages ​​can be considered as independent languages. For example, idioms of the dikak language, DJ (cham) and bwilim (mwan) are marked as separate languages ​​in the description of the subgroup viyyaa cited by R. Blench in the article The Wiyaa group ^[9] , as well as in the classification of J. Greenberg , published in particular , in the article by V. A. Vinogradov “Adamaua-Oriental Languages” in the linguistic encyclopedic dictionary ^[10] . As an independent language, the dialect of the tongue guzubo (gusubou) can also be considered - the significant linguistic differences between guzubo and the dialects of burbou and svabou, identified by W. Kleinewillinghöfer, are mentioned in the work of the British linguist R. Blench The Adamawa Languages ^[11] .

• Blench R. The Wiyaa group . Cambridge: Roger Blench Website. Publications. (Retrieved June 17, 2017)