Tyap phrasebook

Tyap (a̱lyem Tyap) is a dialect continuum of the Central Plateau branch of the Plateau family, of the Benue–Congo divide of the Volta–Congo branch of the Atlantic–Congo family of the Niger-Congo languages. It consists of seven dialects: Fantswam, Gworok, Maba̱ta̱do/Tyap proper, Sholyio, Takad, Tyeca̱rak and Tyuku; with an eighth, Jju – having a different language code but closely related to the Tyap dialects. Tyap is spoken by a population of over 250,000 in an area where the Nok culture (c. BC 1,500 – 500 AD) flourished in the Middle Belt (i.e., the geopolitical Northcentral and southern parts of Northwest and Northeast) of Nigeria.

The dialect used in this phrasebook is the Tyap proper or the Mabatado dialect of Tyap, the prestige dialect after which the language is named. It is noteworthy to know that the other six dialects have different proportions of Tyap proper and Jju and someother neighbouring language. However, one who has knowledge of the Tyap proper dialect and of any of the other Tyap dialects would find it easy to understand the other dialects. Also, the lexical similarities among the seven Tyap dialects are all higher than 80%. The greatest difficulty would be between the speaker of Tyuku and of Tyap proper who are not conversant with each another's dialects. In the past, as late as into the 1950s, the Tyap proper dialect was well known across the area due to the importance of the Zangon Kataf market which was said to be the third largest in the area to be later known as the Northern Nigeria protectorate (1900-1914) and Northern Nigeria region (1914-1967). The term Katab (later Kataf) is the Hausa exonym for the Tyap speaking population and neighbouring related groups.