Miship language

Miship, or Chip, is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Plateau State, Nigeria. Doka is a dialect.^[1] Blench lists the two dialects Longmaar and Jiɓaam.^[2]

Miship
Chip
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Plateau State
Native speakers	(6,000 cited 1976)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Chadic West Chadic Bole–Angas Angas (A.3) Miship
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mjs
Glottolog	mish1244

The Chip people are found in Pankshin LGA.^[3]

People:

The Miship people call themselves as well as their abode, Miship while outsiders wrongly call them and also their abode, Chip, a word that has no meaning in the language. The letter C does not exist in Miship, hence Miship rendering for C for foreign word(s) that contain(s) the letter C (when sounds [tʃ]) is naturally SH, sounds [ʃ]. For example, the typical Miship natives' pronunciation of the English word cheap /tʃɪp/ is naturally /ʃɪp/.

Bible Translation:

The New Testament is wholly translated into Miship by Mast Media Methodology, but it is yet to undergo the due process of Bible Translation; the peer checking, community testing, orthography checking and the consultant checking. The Oral Bible Translation is in progress. The Miship Bible Translation Team is in partnership with NBTT for this project.

Activities:

The traditional activities of Miship people include farming, blacksmithing, weaving, carving among others but palm wine tapping, trading and farming are now the major activities in the Miship land. The Miship people call themselves as well as their abode, Miship while outsiders wrongly call them and also their abode, Chip, a word that has no meaning in the language. The letter C does not exist in Miship, hence Miship rendering for C for foreign word(s) that contain(s) the letter C (when sounds [tʃ]) is naturally SH, sounds [ʃ]. For example, the typical Miship natives' pronunciation of the English word cheap /tʃip/ is naturally /ʃip/. ^{[citation needed]}

Migration:

Oral tradition states that they migrated from Kanem-Bornu to their present homeland with other tribes, Ngas, Mupun, and Mwaghavul.^[4]

Names:

Miship names are generally unisex, so in order to identify the gender of the bearer of a name, the contracted form (which can be modified by a masculine prefix, Da or a feminine prefix Na to indicate that the name bearer is a male or female respectively) is used. For example, for a man and a woman both sharing:

• Naanɗi, the man would be Danaan, and the woman Nanaan.
• Ɗenlong, the man would be Daɗen, and the woman Naɗen.
• Shaakagham, the man would be Dashaa and the woman Nashaa.

In the above examples the contracted forms of the names (which are usually the root word of the names) are Naan, Ɗen and Shaa respectively. Therefore, Da is added to each of them to produce Danaan, Daɗen and Dashaa as the male restricted variants of the names Naanɗi, Ɗenlong and Shakagham respectively. And Na is added to each of them to produce Nanaan, Naɗen and Nashaa as the female restricted variants of the names Naanɗi, Ɗenlong and Shakagham respectively.

Words:

English - Miship

• God - Naan
• father - ndaa
• child - laa
• girl - larep
• boy - laa
• wash - vwang
• person - gurum
• rain - fwan
• children - jep
• food - sɨ
• food - mun
• food - gom
• rice - kapaa
• acha - kɨzuk
• soup - tok
• chicken - koo
• dog - as
• goat - ɨɨ
• meat - luu
• king - long
• animal - long
• animal - luu
• wild animal - luu ɗem

Luu can be meat from animals for example, luu koo means chicken (meat). Luu can also refer to animal e.g luu in the following statement stands for animal: "Mmee a luu ɗe mmee a gurum ma" meaning, "Neither of the two (persons in comparison) is an animal (A Miship proverb meaning "People should be treated equally").

Phrases/Clauses:

• What is your name - Sɨm gɨ a we e? (masculine) or Sɨm yi a we e? (femiminine)
• Good night - Naan yaghal kɨ mun, Mu foghot ɓit or Naan ep mun
• Bye - Ɗang mu kaat
• Good morning - Teer shaghap a? or Yaghal gwe a?
• Thank you - Plangɓwer
• I am hungry - Neen ni pɨ laá n'nan

Numbers:

• 1)One - kɨmee or mmee
• 2)Two - vɨl or nvɨl
• 3)Three - kun
• 4)Four - feer
• 5)Five - paat
• 6)Six - pemee
• 7)Seven - poghovɨl
• 8)Eight - poghokun
• 9)Nine - poghofaar
• 10)Ten - sar
• 11)Eleven - sarpoo-kɨmee or sarkaa-kɨmee
• 20)Twenty - yagurum
• 21)Twenty-one - yagurum kɨ kɨmee
• 30)Thirty - yagurum kɨ sar
• 31)Thirty-one - yagurum kɨ sarpoo-kɨmee or yagurum kɨ sarkaa-kɨmee
• 40)Forty - yakgurum vɨl
• 41)Forty-one - yakgurum vɨl kɨ kɨmee
• 50)Fifty - yakgurum vɨl kɨ sar
• 60)Sixty - yakgurum kun
• 70)Seventy - yakgurum kun kɨ sar
• 71)Seventy-one - yakgurum kun kɨ sarpoo-kɨmee or yakgurum kun kɨ sarkaa-kɨmee
• 80)Eighty - yakgurum feer
• 81)Eighty-one -yakgurum feer kɨ kɨmee
• 90)Ninety - yakgurum feer kɨ sar
• 91)Ninety-one - yakgurum feer kɨ sarpoo-kɨmee or yakgurum feer kɨ sarkaa-kɨmee
• 100)One hundred - yakgurum paat, ɗaa kɨmee or ɗali kɨmee
• 200)Two hundred - ndaam kɨmee , ɗaa vɨl , ɗali vɨl or yakgurum sar