Ron

The Ron language is spoken by about 115,000 people mostly in Bokkos Local Government of Plateau State. It is bordered by Kulere and the Mushere dialect of Mwaghavul in the south and southwest, Sha in the west, Birom in the north and Mwaghavul in the east. The Ron people are also called "Chala" by their neighbours ("cala" being their most common greeting).

Dialects

There are three dialects of Ron, which may conveniently be referred to as the Bokkos, Daffo-Butura and Monguna dialect, using the names of the respective district headquarters.

Current classification

Ron itself and a few closely related languages (Kulere, Sha, Karfa, Mundat, Fyer, and Tambas) form a group which is referred to as the Ron Group within the Western branch of Chadic, which is part of the Afroasiatic phylum.

Research on Ron

Scientific research on the Ron languages started with Herrmann Jungraithmayr, who was able to collect material on five languages of this group during two field research trips to Northern Nigeria in the years 1962 and 1964. In his monograph Die Ron-Sprachen (Jungraithmayr 1970) he describes and compares the morphology and the basic vocabulary of five languages, classifies them as a group within the western branch of Chadic and relates them to other Chadic languages.

In 1983/84 Phil Davison, a British member of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, undertook a field survey in the Ron language area. One result of his research was a small brochure titled A Ron Alphabet, which was published by the Ron Language Committee and Nigeria Bible Translation Trust in a trial edition in 1985. In this brochure a common orthography is proposed for the Butura- (including Daffo) and Bokkos ‘dialect’ of Ron.

In 1989/90 and 1991, Uwe Seibert spent several months in the Ron area, gathering information on the Daffo dialect of Ron. The results were published in 1998 in Das Ron von Daffo (Jos-Plateau, Zentralnigeria). Morphologische, syntaktische und textlinguistische Strukturen einer westtschadischen Sprache, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Apart from that, he collected wordlists in other dialects and languages of the Ron group:

Bokkos
Fyer
Karfa
Mangar
Monguna
Mundat
Tambas

These materials are not yet published.

The Ron Language Committee is working on a translation of the New Testament in the Daffo-Butura and the Bokkos dialects of Ron.

Up to now the following articles and monographs have appeared on the Ron languages:

Jungraithmayr, Herrmann

1965 Internal A in Ron plurals. Journal of African Languages 4,2, p. 102-107.
1965/66 Die Laryngale h und ^c im Scha. Afrika und Übersee 49, p. 169-73.
1966 Zur Bildung der Aspektstämme in den Ron-Sprachen (Plateau, Nordnigerien), In: Lukas, J. (Ed.), Neue Afrikanistische Studien. Hamburg, p. 117-25.
1968a The Hamitosemitic present-habitative verb stem in Ron and Mubi, Journal of West African Languages 5,2, p. 71-76.
1968b A comparative word list of the Ron languages (Southern Plateau, N. Nigeria), Africana Marburgensia 1,2, p. 3-12.
1968c Ancient Hamito-semitic remnants in the Sudan, African Language Review 7, p. 16-22.
1968/69 Hausa, Ron and Angas: a comparative analysis of their "aspect" systems, Afrika und Übersee 52, p. 15-22.
1969 Der Applikativ- oder Zielstamm im Ron, In: Jungraithmayr, H. and H.-J. Greschat (Ed.), Wort und Religion, Stuttgart, p. 89-93.
1970 Die Ron-Sprachen. Tschadohamitische Studien in Nordnigerien. Glückstadt.
1972 Fyer-Sätze, Afrika und Übersee 52, p. 258-262.
1981 Le daffo (ron). In: Perrot, J. (Ed.), Les langues dans le monde ancien et moderne, Paris, p. 429-33.

Lek, Mafulul and Uwe Seibert

1991 Madafal. Stories and Tales from Daffo. Trial Edition. Jos: Zima Publishing

Ron Language Commitee

1985 A Ron Alphabet. Trial Edition. Jos: NBTT.

Seibert, Uwe

1992 Edition von Ron-Texten aus Daffo. Der Anfang einer literarischen Tradition. Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter 4, S 115f.
1994 Die Erforschung der Ron-Sprachen. In: Jungraithmayr, H. und G. Miehe (Ed.): Mitteilungen des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, p. 203-12.
1995 Encoding Space and Time in Ron (Daffo dialect). In: Time in Languages, (CTS-95-06), Prag: Center for Theoretical Studies, p. 72-77.

A number of articles and monographs – mostly by Barbara Frank – treat the culture and history of the Ron and the Kulere. Some older sources are for example Ames, Gunn and Meek:

Ames, C.G.

1934 Gazetteer of the Plateau Province, Jos.

Frank, Barbara

1974a Handwerk und Handelsbeziehungen im Ron-Gebiet, Tribus 23, p. 91-130.
1974b Zur sozialen Bedeutung des Pferdes bei den Ron oder Challa. Veröf-fentlichungen aus dem Übersee-Museum in Bremen. Reihe B, Bd. 5.
1976 Initiation, Verdienstfeste und Kultbünde bei den Ron und Kulere, Pai-deuma 22, p. 123-50.
1978 Historical Traditions of the Ron. Africana Marburgensia 11,1, p. 19-42.
1981a Die Kulere. Bauern in Mittelnigeria. Wiesbaden.
1981b Zur Bedeutung des Pferdes bei den Ron oder Challa (Plateau-Staat, Nigeria). Tribus 30, p. 135-142.
1982 Diskrepanz zwischen Kultur- und Sprachzugehörigkeit der Kulere im nigerianischen ”Mittelgürtel”. In: Jungraithmayr, H. (Ed.), The Chad languages in the Hamitosemitic-Nigritic Border Area (Papers of the Marburg Symposion 1979), Berlin, p. 144-49.
1983 Ron. In: Müller, K.E. (Ed.), Menschenbilder früher Gesellschaften. Frankfurt/New York, p. 204-221.
1990 From Village Autonomy to Modern Village Administration among the Kulere of Central Nigeria. Africa 60 (2), p. 270-293.
1995 Permitted and Prohibited Wealth: Commodity-Possessing Spirits, Economic Morals, and the Goddess Mami Wata in West Africa, Ethnology 34/4, p. 331-46.

Gunn, H.D.

1953 Peoples of the Plateau Area of Northern Nigeria. Ethnographic Survey of Africa, West Africa VI. London.

Jungraithmayr, H.

1967 Scha (Westafrika, Nordnigerien), Tanz der Frauen am Abend vor der Hirseernte, Encyclopedia Cinematographica. E 586. Göttingen.

Meek, C.K.

1925 The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, 2 vols., London.
1931 Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria, 2 vols. London.

Mohr, R.

1960 Ein Besuch bei den Schalla des Plateau von Nordnigerien, Tribus 9, p. 107-20.

Temple, O. and C.L. (Ed.)

1922 Notes on the Tribes, Provinces, Emirates and States of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria. Lagos.

Following Page

Home Page

Dr. Uwe Seibert

Department of Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
University of Jos

Email address: seibertu@unijos.edu.ng

Date of last change: