About the Sakun Language

Other Names

The Sakun language goes by many names. The following paragraphs include names for the language found in Michael Thomas's disseration titled A Grammar of Sakun (Sukur), the Endangered Language Archive, and the Endangered Languages Project.

There are two endonyms, or names for the language that are used by the speaker population, for the Sakun language. These names are Sákún (Sakun) and Sakwun.

There are six exonyms, or names for the language that are used by people outside of the speaker population, for the Sakun language. These names are Sukur, Sakur, Sugur, Sakul, Adikimmu Sukur, and Gemasakun.

This photo is of the Afro-Asiatic family tree. Sakun is located under the Chadic category, in the sub-category Biu-Mandara.

Genealogical Information

According to Thomas's dissertation A Grammar of Sakun (Sukur), Sakun is an isolete of the Biu-Manadara branch of the Chadic subfamily of Afro-Asiatic languages (8). Within the language, there are minor dialect variations between the hill-top and the plains communities (6).

Sakun falls into a sub-group of the Biu-Manadara branch called Biu-Manadara A, which includes 7 other languages (Bata, Daba, Tera, Bura, Higi, Mandara, and Matakam). Out of these languages, Sakun is most closely related to Mandara and Matakam (Shryock 31).

According to the Endangered Language Archive, the specifics of Sakun's classification varies between researchers and the speakers themselves. The Sakun community claims their language is similar to the Higi and Kapsiki languages, while researches have come to different conclusions.

Speaker Population

The speaker population of Sakun is primairly the ethnic group that shares a name, the Sakun. There are roughly 15,000 people reported as speaking Sakun, however other estimates count up to 27,000 native speakers in total. Neither of these estimates include those who speak Sakun as a second language (Thomas, A Grammar of Sakun (Sukur) 3).

This map, published in a 2015 paper by Emeka Okonkwo, shows the location of the Sukur people (and their language).

Location

Sakun is found in the Mandara mountain region of Adamawa State, Nigeria, which is located on the boarder of Nigeria and Cameroon. Sakun is spoken primarily in the Sakun community, but it is found in other areas of Nigeria like the towns of Gwoza, Michika, and Mubi and serveral major cities due to the Sakun diaspora (Thomas, A Grammar of Sakun (Sukur) 2).

Identifier Codes

For documentation purposes, Sakun has the ISO 639-3 code syk and the Glottocode suku1272 ("Sukur").