Samba-Duru Group

(Ulrich Kleinewillinghöfer, revised 2022)

 The bulk of the Samba-Duru languages, representing Greenberg's (1963) Adamawa groups 2 (Chamba or Samba Leko) and 4 (Duru, Vere), are spoken in a contiguous area extending from the Vere Hills south of the Benue in Nigeria to the Adamawa Plateau in Cameroon. The Samba and Duru groups were first combined into a (genetic) unit under the name "Chamba-Namshi" by Bennett in 1983, where  "Chamba" refers to the Samba language while "Namshi" is a now abandoned appellation of the Doowaayo (speaking Dooya̰a̰yo) and Paape peoples. A 'Chamba-Namshi unit'  was, however, not taken up by subsequent authors, who generally maintained a Samba or Leko Group and a Duru Group apart, as in Greenberg 1963.

The now available data show, however, that the Samba (or Leko) Group rather forms one of the branches of a Samba-Duru Group (or else Samba-Vere or Vere-Samba Group) which is principally defined by common phonological traits, a significant number of common retentions and a number of shared innovations in its basic lexicon. The other subgroups of this unit are the Duru Group, the Vere Group, the Gəmme Group and Dooya̰a̰yo. The Dooya̰a̰yo lects form their own unit. As regards the relation of the five subgroups within Samba-Duru, Vere and Gəmme are very closely related. They form a Vere-Gəmme or Gəmme-Vere unit which in turn seems to constitute together with Dooya̰a̰yo the northern branch of the entire unit, while the Duru and the Samba languages may combine to constitute its southern branch.

The area is dominated by steeply rising mountains, most prominent the Alantika Mountains and the Poli Massif, their highest peaks tower up to 1.500m above the sourrounding plains. The remote uplands and valleys of the Alantika Mountains straddling the border of Cameroon and Nigeria are the home of several hitherto largely undocumented varieties of the close-knit Gəmme and Vere languages, one of the branches of Samba-Duru. Together with the Lɔŋto language in the western foothills of the Poli Massif, a member of the Duru subgroup of Samba-Duru, they constitute a contiguous zone of noun class languages, outstanding among the so-called Adamawa languages in terms of the complexity and archaisms of their class systems. All of them have preserved presumably ancient features of the noun class system which appears to be characteristic for a still to be confined 'Benue-Volta' ("Adamawa-Gur"). The rich class morphologies of the languages in this zone contrasts significantly with the situation in most Adamawa language groups, where noun class morphologies are generally largely reduced or even completely absent. This is also the case in the other Samba-Duru languages outside that zone.

 

SAMBA-DURU Language Groups

Mubaako (aka Məbaako) is spoken around Balikumbat in the North West Region and, thus, outside the limits of the map. There are further Samba enclaves to the West in Nigeria. The areas of the Duru languages Pere (aka Pɛrɛ) und Dii extend as well considerably beyond the limits of the map.

VERE (Verre)

Jango (= Mom Jango)
Vere Cluster  (= Momi, Vere Kaadam)
Alantika Vere: Wɔmmu; Nissim-Eilim; Kobom, Karum (= Vere Kari), Danum; Sagdəm, Samləm Vɔmnəm  (Koma Vomni)
Gəunəm Cluster:  Yarəm, Lim, Gbaŋrɨm, Baidəm, Zanəm, Ləələm; ...
Damtəm (Koma Damti); ...

GƏMME (GIMME)  (KOMA)

Gəmnəm (Gəmnime, Gimnime): Beiya, Gindoo;Riitime
Gəmme (Kompana, Panme) : Yəgme, Dehnime; Baanime

DOYAYO

Doyayo (Dooya̰a̰yɔ) : Markɛ; Tɛ̰ɛ̰rɛ (of Poli); Tɛ̰ɛ̰rɛ (of the mountains)

DURU

Dii Cluster
Dugun  (Paape, Sa)
Duupa  (Paape)
Pere (Pɛrɛ)
Lɔŋto  (Voko, Woko)

SAMBA   ( = SAMBA LEEKO, LEKO)

Samba Cluster
Mubaako (Məbaako, Mumbaako, Nyong)
Kolbila
Pɛrɛma (Wɔm)

Duli and Gewe (aka Gueve, Gey) as reported by Strümpell 1922/23 and Baudelaire 1944 refer to the names of two settlements on either bank of the Benue near the confluence with the Mayo Kebi (~ Kebbi). Their inhabitants apparently spoke varieties of only one language. The Ethnologue reports Duli as extinct. Boyd 1989 and the Ethnologue list Duli as as a member of the Duru group. The data available on Duli/Gewe does not support this classification, though the data, nevertheless, indicates that Duli/Gewe appears to be closely related to Samba-Duru as well as Baari (aka Nimbari).

 

Classification

The traditional classification of Samba-Duru was that this language group belongs to an Adamawa branch of an Adamawa-Eastern (later renamed Adamawa-Ubangi) division of Niger-Congo (Greenberg 1963). This classification regards Gur and Adamawa to be distinct branches within the Niger-Congo family, despite the typological, morphological, and lexical correspondences of several 'Adamawa' languages linking them evidently with Gur. This view began to falter following lexicostatistical studies by Bennett & Sterk 1977 and Bennett 1983, which propagated that these subdivisions of Niger-Congo are rather part of a continuum comprising Gur-Adamawa-Ubangi which they named North Volta-Congo. Bennett 1983, in particular, holds - though on somewhat meagre lexicostatistical evidence - that within this continuum a clear-cut border between eastern Gur and western 'Adamawa' groups cannot be defined. This view is partially supported by morphological correspondences presented in Kleinewillinghöfer 1996 which point to a common ancestry of at least one western 'Adamawa' group, namely Tula-Waja, with Central Gur.

More substantial and significant are, however, the robust morpho-syntactical correspondences, particularly as regards the nominal classification, found during the last decade to exist in several poorly documented languages of the Samba-Duru group, which clearly indicate that they also share common ancestry with the Gur languages (aka 'langues voltaïques'). By expanding the comparative research of the nominal classification systems to the few remaining languages within the putative 'Adamawa unit' which still have maintained an elaborate nominal classification revealed furthermore that they also share salient morphological features, once more indicative of a common genealogical descent.

A subsequent detailed comparative study of nominal classification systems of Gur languages - cf. Manessy 1969, 1975, 1979, 1983, 1993, Miehe et al 2007, 2012 - and those languages of the disputed 'Adamawa group of languages' which still possess an elaborated noun class system, namely Tula-Waja, Samba-Duru, Ɓəna-Mboi, Longuda, and Bua, revealed furthermore that they all share to variant extents a bundle of discrete morphological, and morpho-syntactical features apparently inherited from a common source. Based on this evidence and the previously recognised lexical relationship, and supported by a common cultural vocabulary (Kleinewillinghöfer 2018), the discrete contour of a genealogical unit emerged, which I proposed to name 'Upper Benue-Volta' or in short  'Benue-Volta' referring to the two river-basins where the languages are predominantly spoken.

The morphological/grammatical features which apparently link the class languages spoken in the (upper part) of the Volta Basin, i.e. the Gur languages family aka 'langues voltaïques' with noun class languages spoken in the Upper Benue Basin are nominal classification systems based on discrete morphemes cognate in form, semantics, function, corresponding in the main pattern of the genders and trans-numeral classes (i.e. classes containing masses, liquids, abstracts, generic terms, verbal nouns), where class membership is predominantly marked by nominal suffixes, while concord morphemes mapping agreement on dependent constituents may be prefixed and/or suffixed. The soundness of a 'Benue-Volta' unit is furthermore supported by the word order in genitive/ /possessive constructions. According to Bendor-Samuel 1971:171: "Possessive construction always consist of the nomen rectum preceding the nomen regens, the possessive pronoun precedes the noun. There seems to be no exception to this order in Gur. Usually there is no linking particle between the possessor and the possessed item." This also describes the word order in possessive constructions in Bua and several Samba-Duru languages[1]. However, there is some variation in several languages where nominal possessors precede or optionally may precede or follow the possessed (i.e. the head). Possessive pronouns, however, generally precede the possessed.

Thus, Benue-Volta combines languages and language groups which are part of the hypothetical 'North Volta-Congo' continuum proposed in Bennett & Sterk 1977, Bennett 1983, Williamson 1989, Williamson & Blench 2000, Blench 2012. But see also different views in Dimmendaal 2008, and Güldemann 2018.  The internal structure of Benue-Volta and which other languages of Greengberg's 'Adamawa-Ubangi' complex that have lost a comparable/equivalent nominal classification may also belong to it, still needs to be detected.

As regards the position and relations of Samba-Duru, Bennett's (1983) assumes that 'Chamba-Namshi', the Mumuye and Yendang groups, as well as the extinct Nimbari form one of the divisions of a Gur-Adamawa-Ubangi continuum (1983:43). Boyd (1989), who keeps the 'Leko' (= Samba ) and Duru groups apart, basically follows Bennett's grouping, when he suggests that the Leko, Duru, Mumuye and Yendang groups as well as the extinct language Nimbari, "form a core of closely related languages within Adamawa" (1989:179). This stance is essentially kept up in the Ethnologue. where this division is unfittingly named Leko–Nimbari. (cf. Kastenholz & Kleinewillinghöfer 2012.)

[1] And also in Mumuye, Yandang, and Kim where an elabotated nominal classification no more exists.


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