Browsing by Author "Umaru, Jacob Yakubu"

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    THE ISSUES OF LANGUAGE IN GOVERNANCE IN A MULTILINGUAL SOCIETY
    (Department of Language and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2021-07-05) Akase, Tiav Thomas; Umaru, Jacob Yakubu; Amende, Charles A.; Akwashiki, Vincent S.
    Language is very vital to human society, that there is hardly any situation or human function where language is not required. It also means that for any idea to be transformed into good governance, it must be sufficiently couched in human language. This means that the ideas, knowledge, skills, attitude and experiences required for governance must be communicated to people through language. All the interventions and achievements ever recorded in human existence have their roots in language. This explains that no governance can take place without language. Language therefore, plays a role in the development of a nation. It also contributes to individual and societal development. This adopts descriptive approach to discuss the issues of language in governance in Africa with a particular reference to Nigeria. Personal observations have been used in the collection of data for this work. As members of Nigerian society, the researchers have been much familiar with the issues of language in governance as chosen for discussion. Some amount of information was obtained from textbooks and journal publications for clearer understanding of the subject matter. The data collected is systematically described considering the facts and features involved. The research study shows that language policy, language choice and acceptability are the major issues of language in governance in a multilingual society like Nigeria in particular and Africa at large. The study also shows incidences of disunity, low productivity, conflict, fake hate speech and underdevelopment are some of the effects of issues of language in governance in Nigeria. The work finally proffer solution to some of the language issues in governance in Nigeria
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    Linguistic Variations within Otukpo and Agatu Dialects of Idoma
    (Department of Languages and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, 2015-10-01) Abraham, David A.; Umaru, Jacob Yakubu; Muhammed, Bashir Yusuf
    The paper investigates some linguistic variations within Otukpo and Agatu dialects of Idoma. Structured interview was used to elicit data for the work. Native speakers of both dialects were consulted and interviewed using 200 Swadish word-lists. Morphological, phonological, semantics and lexical variations in forms and meaning of words are identified within both dialects. The paper observed that, although the morphology, phonology,semantics and lexical variations exist within both dialects, there is still mutual intelligible among the speakers as indeed with the other dialects of Idoma.
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    The Study of the Semantics of the Preposition above in the Nigeria Criminal Code Act
    (Department of French, Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2018-01-06) Umaru, Jacob Yakubu; Salih, Muhammad Jamiu Alagolo; Abu, Lois Owiyoda
    The aim of this paper analyses the semantics of above in English as a natural language and the Nigeria Criminal Code Act as a legal text with a view to seeing if the discrepancy between its senses in the ordinary English and the senses in the legal texts. The examination is vital owing to the fact that the discrepancy in the senses has impact on the interpretation of the law which in turn has bearing on judgment delivery and the establishment of the justice. So, the attention must be called to the peculiarity, if any, when interpreting the document. The work uses polysemy approach to provide proof for each sense associated with above in the Nigeria Criminal Code Act.
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    THE SYNTAX OF AGATU PERSONAL NAMES
    (Department of Languages and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, 2017-09-17) Umaru, Jacob Yakubu; Muhammad, Bashir Yusuf; Abraham, David A.
    The paper gives an insight into the syntactic structure of Agatu personal names. The motivation for the research is the importance attached to linguistic act of naming, which is a unique human trait and medium for conceptualising and interpreting human experiences and essence. The study is-limited to Ag£tu dialect spoken inAg&tu Local Government Area of Benue State. Two sources of information were open to the researchers for both primary and secondary data collection. The primary sources came from the field, which included those that were derived directly from the native speakers through interviews and observations. The language assistants/ consultants were Ag£tu - English bilinguals; whose competence in the chosen dialect and the data could be verified by any native speaker of Agcitu. Five respondents were selected from each of the villages, with three men and two women each from the villages. The consultants were chosen because they were native speakers and have lived in the local government area for a long time. Textual materials such as thesis, dissertations and projects, journal articles, chapters in books, encyclopaedia, textbooks, internet, and so on form the secondary _ sources of data collection. One of the researcher's high levels of competence in the language was also very useful in the collection, collation and elicitation of data collected on the field. This also helps to give direction to the work. The researchers made use of five techniques for data collection, that is, the oral interviews, which involved one - on - one interaction between the researchers and the respondents, one of the researcher's intuitions as a native speaker, tape recording of interactions between the researchers and the respondents and subsequent translation of the data by the research assistants. Competent native speakers who are proficient in the dialect were also used to translate the data. This enabled the researchers to elicit actual translation of the English to Ag£tu version and to analyse the syntax of Ag6tu names. Descriptive method of data analysis was used to analyse the structure of Ag6tu names. The findings of this paper show that the structures of . Agcitu personal names are in words, phrases as well as sentences, which are desententialized. This research, therefore, has contributed to the syntactic • analysis of African languages.