Tiv love poem

A short translation of the love poem in Tiv (Tiwi), a Bantu, Tivoid language spoken mainly in Benue State in Nigeria, and in Cameroon. Tiv has more than 5 million speakers.

The word Tiv refers to the people, their culture and language. As all languages, due to trade or migration, Tiv has been influenced by the neighboring languages. These languages are Fulani, Bafum, Chamba, Hausa, Kuteb and Jukun.

It was missionaries who first described the Tiv language, which was purely oral. In their desire to evangelize, they began to write this language, on the basis of the Latin alphabet.

The creation of schools in Tiv, to teach religion, will have first contributed to the development of the language.

Little by little the role of these missionaries will decrease, and in the multilingual society that is Nigeria, this development will stop.

Drowned among more of the 400 languages of the country, and especially with the predominance of English, many of the Tiv speakers lose the interest that they should have for their language. As books are very difficult to find, many of them do not even know that there are a literature in Tiv.

As all languages, there are many dialectal variants, and today the literary standard is not yet completely defined, but the translation of the Bible in 1964 remains a good basis for the standardization of the language.

Today, the Nigerian government clearly indicates that mother tongues should be used in the early years of primary education. In this way, it encourages the writing of textbooks.

In Benue State, Tiv is taught at the university. It seems that this is only the beginning, because the academics who have taken these courses are becoming aware of their role in promoting their language through articles, conferences and the creation of associations.

New actions to develop the use of Tiv, and all the other minority languages in Nigeria, will certainly happen... in any case, we must hope so.

In Nigeria, the Tiv (Munshi, Munchi) people, are about six million, they are therefore a small ethnic group.

While they are undeniably Bantus, their origin is disputed. Some say they come from Central Africa, from the Congo. Others place this origin further east and the Nile.

We know that the different Bantu groups throughout their history have migrated a lot from one end of Africa to the other.