Comments and discussion welcome
Abstract
The Mambila language comprises a cluster of dialects
which straddle the Nigeria–Cameroon border. One of the striking
aspects of Mambila is its apparent internal diversity – Blench
(1993), for example, regards it as the most diverse of the Mambiloid
languages. The accepted view regarding this heterogeneity, established
by Perrin & Hill (1969) and fostered by Zeitlyn (1994) as well
as Blench, is that there is a basic division among the dialects giving
two clusters. The boundary between the two essentially corresponds
to the major geographical division between the Mambila Plateau and
the Tikar Plain. Earlier, Meek (1931) had also suggested a fundamental
two-way split, though one that had little in common with that eventually
proposed in Perrin & Hill. New research suggests that earlier
divisions of Mambila were premature; at least by some criteria, Mambila
does comprise two major dialect clusters, though the division is not
that envisaged by previous researchers. This paper provides evidence
of the division among Mambila dialects and then goes on to explore
two issues: the relative roles of divergence and convergence in the
rise of the present Mambila situation, and what the Mambila situation
can tell us about the dynamics of language change more generally.