Laka of Lau is a

Central Sudanic Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...

language spoken in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. It is most closely related to Kabba Laka of Chad. The

Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...

refer to the Laka people of Lau as ''Lakawa''. The language was only recently documented in the mid-2010s, and had been previously misclassified as a

Mbum Mbum Proper (also Mboum, Buna, Mboumtiba and Wuna) is a Adamawa–Ubangi language of Central Africa. It is spoken by about people in Cameroon and the Central African Republic. History The Mbum language is spoken by the Mbum people who inhabit ...

language along with

Lau Lau or LAU may refer to: People * Lau (surname) * Liu (劉/刘), a common Chinese family name transliterated Lau in Cantonese and Hokkien * Lau clan, one of the Saraswat Brahmin clans of Punjab * LAU (musician): Laura Fares Places * Lebane ...

Distribution

Laka speakers live in Laka ward of

LGA (Hausa: ''Angawan Lakawa''; formerly ''Garin Lakawa'' ‘Laka town’),

Taraba State ) , image_map = Nigeria - Taraba.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location of Taraba State in Nigeria , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , ...

, eastern Nigeria.Idiatov, Dmitry, Mark Van de Velde, Tope Olagunju and Bitrus Andrew. 2017.
Results of the first AdaGram survey in Adamawa and Taraba States, Nigeria
'. 47th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) (Leiden, Netherlands). They live alongside the Win

(or ''Lau proper''; formerly ''Lau Habe''), who are

Jukunoid The Jukunoid languages are a branch of the Benue-Congo languages spoken by the Jukun people (West Africa), Jukun and related peoples of Nigeria and Cameroon. They are distributed mostly throughout Taraba State, Nigeria and surrounding regions. ...

speakers.

Lexical comparison

The following table compares Laka (Lau) and

Laka In Hawaiian mythology, Laka is the name of two different popular heroes from Polynesian mythology. (In other parts of Polynesia they are known as Rātā, Rata, Lata, Ata, or Lasa). In one Hawaiian legend, Laka is the son of the '' Ali'i nui'' W ...

(Chad), both of which are

Central Sudanic languages Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...

, with

proper, a

language.

References

{{Central Sudanic languages Bongo–Bagirmi languages Languages of Nigeria