| Tivoid | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Southwest Cameroon, southeast Nigeria |
| Linguistic classification: | Niger–Congo
|
| Subdivisions: |
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The Tivoid languages are a group of African languages, a sub-family of the Southern Bantoid group, spoken in parts of Nigeria and Cameroon.
The majority are threatened with extinction. The largest of these languages by far is the Tiv language for which the group is named, with some 2 million speakers (as of 1991). The second largest is the Bitare language with some 110,000 speakers (as of 2000). Most apart from Tiv are extremely poorly known, and the next best, Esimbi, has not even been demonstrated to be Tivoid.
Following Blench (2010), Tivoid languages fall into three branches, though North Tivoid languages are almost unattested. The names in parentheses are dialects per Ethnologue, separate languages per Blench:
Esimbi is well known, but there is not much reason to consider it Tivoid; it has just about as much in common with Grassfields languages.
SIL Ethnologue lists three additional languages, Manta, Balo, and Osatu, based on an old, provisional assignment of Blench; Blench (2010) states they are instead in the Southwest Grassfields (Western Momo) family.