CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES AND FUTURE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Challenges

Aside from the pressure of globalization, Mwaghavul is faced with structural, economic, social, political, and religious challenges that implicate its linguistic vitality and continuity. The decline in its vitality is largely involuntary; the people, language, and culture are geographically surrounded by larger linguistic groups with much greater social, political, and economic capital. The almost now extinct mining industry, along with the allure of paid employment and city life in the nearby capital city of Jos, continue to ensure migration of Mwaghavul youth into the various Nigerian urban centers. Many Mwaghavul after education in Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Lagos and Abuja, the Federal capita territory, rarely return to their native land where the main economic activities remain farming, commerce, teaching (elementary and high school), preaching, and animal husbandry. Despite these challenges, Mwaghavul language and culture have profited from its proximity to the well-regarded university of Jos. Some of the scholars include historians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists whose research interest include the Mwaghavul. Also, the prestigious Kay Williamson Educational Foundation that promotes research of, and publication in, Nigerian languages. Parochial institutions with international support are equally paying greater attention to less studied Nigerian languages mostly motivated by evangelical zeal. In view of differing goals in the documentation of the Mwaghavul language, i.e., secular and religious, the issue of orthography arises. Missionaries of the 20th century adapted Yoruba spelling conventions to write Mwaghavul, Currently, led by professional linguists, a new orthography containing 27 Roman letters is in use, in addition, it has about 13 double consonant sounds such as labial + stops, nasal + stop\alveolar. Essentially, standardization of the language remains unsettled although the tendency is towards phonetic representation of the sounds of the language.