Kyoli language

The Kyoli or Cori (Chori) language is a Plateau language spoken in Southern Kaduna State, Nigeria.

It is spoken in the northeast of Nok in Jaba Local Government Area (LGA), Kaduna State. The speakers prefer to spell the name of their language as Kyoli, which is pronounced [kjoli] or [çjoli]. The ethnic group is referred to as Kwoli.

There are about 7,000-8,000 Kyoli speakers living in the two village clusters of Hal-Kyoli and Bobang. Bobang is the cultural center of the Kyoli-speaking area. Bobang village cluster consists of the five hamlets of Bobang, Fadek, Akoli, Hagong, and Nyamten. Hal-Kyoli village is situated by itself. All of the Kwoli villages surround the foot of Egu-Kyoli Hill, which rises more than 240 meters above the villages.^[1]

Cori is known for having six distinct levels of tone, too many to transcribe using the International Phonetic Alphabet, which allows five. However, there are only three underlying tones: 1 (top), 4 (mid), and 6 (bottom), which are all that need to be written for literacy. Most cases of Tone 2 (high) are a result of tone sandhi, with 4 becoming 2 before 1. Tones 3 (mid-high) and 5 (low) can be analysed as contour tones, with underlying /1͡6/ realised as [3] and /2͡6/ realised as [5].

In order to transcribe the surface tones without numerals (which are ambiguous), an extra diacritic is needed, as is common for four-level languages in Central America:

1 [ő] (top)

2 [ó] (high)

3 [o̍] (mid-high)

4 [ō] (mid)

5 [ò] (low)

6 [ȍ] (bottom)

Kyoli numerals in different dialects:^[1]

• A Sociolinguistic Profile of the Kyoli (Cori) [cry] Language of Kaduna State, Nigeria
• Dihoff, Ivan (1976). Aspects of the tonal structure of Chori. Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin.