Kugama (Wam)
Lora Litvinova
Kugama (glottocode: kuga1239) is spoken in a number of villages in Mayo-Belwa LGA and Fufore LGA of Adamawa State. The speakers refer to their languages as ɲáá ꜜwã᷅m ‘the Wam language’. The name Kugama is an exonym, but today it is regularly used by the Wam themselves when speaking in other languages.
Lora started her work on Kugama in January 2014 when she did her first field trip to Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, as part of research for her BA and later for her MA theses at St. Petersburg State University, Russia. In December 2016, she obtained a PhD fellowship from Labex EFL (project LC2 “Areal phenomena in northern sub-Saharan Africa”) for the description and documentation of Kugama.
During her first fieldwork mission to the Kugama country in March–June 2017, Lora was warmly welcomed by the Chairman of the Kugama community, Eric Zinas, the official representative of the Kugama, Zaphania Baleri, other members of the community, as well as by the residents of Mayo-Belwa, where she stayed for the duration of her fieldwork. Throughout her stay she received great personal support and guidance from the Administrative Officer of Gengle State Development Area, Patricia Ishaya. Thanks to the hospitality of the administration of Mayo-Belwa LGA and its Executive Chairman, Mohammed Bako, Lora had an opportunity to conduct her research in comfortable and safe conditions.
Lora had the pleasure of working with many members of the Kugama community, especially with Andrew Christopher, Benjamin Bavere, Hanus Panti, Linus Pana Sambo, and Yunusa Filgona. We are deeply grateful to them for their lively interest in the project and their enthusiastic motivation. We are also grateful to the Majority Leader of the Adamawa State House of Assembly, Alhaji Musa Mahmud Kallamu, for providing safety and comfort during all trips in the initial stage of Lora's research.
You may find some further information and links on the Kugama language and people on the Kugama website that Lora created together with the Kugama community.
References:
- Blench, Roger. 2009 (ms). The Maya [Yendang] languages. URL: http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger-Congo/AU/Yandang%20group/.
- Litvinova, Lora. 2014. Притяжательные местоимения в языке кугама [Possessive pronouns in Kugama]. In Alexandr Ju. Zheltov (ed.), Антропология и лингвистика. Материалы петербургских экспедиций в Африку [Anthropology and Linguistics. Materials of St. Petersburg expeditions to Africa], 167–173. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN.
- Litvinova, Lora. 2015. Личные местоимения в языке кугама [Personal pronouns in Kugama]. Paper presented at 28th International Conference on historiography and source studies of Asia and Africa “Asia and Africa in the Changing World”. St. Petersburg.
- Litvinova, Lora. 2016. Элементы морфосинтаксиса языка кугама [Topics in Kugama morphosyntax]. St. Petersburg: St.Petersburg State University MA thesis.
- Litvinova, Lora. 2022. Selected Kugama documentation (with audio). Pangloss Collection: An archive for endangered languages. URL: https://pangloss.cnrs.fr/corpus/Kugama
- Litvinova, Lora. 2022. Downstep and H tone raising in Kugama. Francqui International Professorship Symposium: The Diversity and Documentation of Speech Sounds in Languages of the World (Antwerp, Belgium). [slides]
- Litvinova, Lora & Chika Kennedy Ajede. 2023. Quotative constructions in Kugama and Dijim. Reported discourse within grammar: Cross-linguistic insights (Villejuif, France). [slides]
- Litvinova, Lora. 2023. Nominal and verbal allomorphy in Kugama. 2nd Adamawa Conference (Paris, France). [slides]
