Glottolog 5.0

Spoken L1 Language: Bure

Classification

Comments on subclassification

Andrew Haruna 1998

Endangerment

AES status:: nearly extinct
Source:: Campbell, Lyle and Lee, Nala Huiying and Okura, Eve and Simpson, Sean and Ueki, Kaori 2022
Comment:: Bure (5992-bvh) = Critically Endangered (100 percent certain, based on the evidence available) (The Bubburè language is about to undergo a complete language shift as it is in the process of being replaced by Hausa, another Chadic language. The process... is about to lead to a complete disappearance of Bubburè as a distinct linguistic form... The descendants of members of the speech community still exist but no longer speak the former language. Instead they speak a replacing language (Hausa), which has superseded their mother tongue after an intermediate period of bilingual usage... The language is limited to the family domain... Amongst the last surviving semi-speakers (who are all above 65 years) Bubburè is only used with a large number of Hausa words when communicating secrets to one another on social occasions (e.g. meetings or when in the company of strangers, etc.)... Those below the age 65 could not remember using the language except a few phrases of greetings... The only exposure of this group [below the age 65] to the language was limited to listening to a few sentences used by older people when they get angry in certain situations.They had not learned the language by way of a normal acquisition process. They have largely abandoned anything Bubburè and adopted all features of Hausa society, including the language. They consider it their language which is more useful as a lingua franca and is regarded as prestigious... They are not opposed to any plan to preserve Bubburè so that it cannot be lost. As the matter of fact they seem uninterested in learning Bubburè...)
(see Haruna 1998)