Somyev (Somyewe), also known as Kila ("blacksmith" in

Fulfulde Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ; Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 36.8 million people as a set of various diale ...

), is a nearly extinct

Mambiloid language The twelve Mambiloid languages are languages spoken by the Mambila and related peoples mostly in eastern Nigeria and in Cameroon. In Nigeria the largest group is Mambila (there is also a small Mambila population in Cameroon). In Cameroon the l ...

of two villages, one in

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

and one in

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

, that is spoken by a caste of blacksmiths that live among the

Mambila The Mambilla or Mambila people of Nigeria live on the Mambilla Plateau (in Sardauna, Nigeria, 'Sardauna' local government area (formerly, Mambilla LGA) of Taraba State in Nigeria). A small fraction of Mambilla migrants left the Mambilla Plateau fo ...

. Although the language is still used for daily communication, the youngest generation of speakers were born in the 1950s. Transmission of the language ceased when the profession of blacksmithing lost its social status, partly due to imports of foreign tools.Connell, B. (1997)
Moribund languages of the Nigeria-Cameroon borderland
In M. Brezinger (ed.), ''Endangered Languages in Africa.'' Cologne, Germany: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Pp 197–213.

References

Mambiloid languages Languages of Cameroon Languages of Nigeria {{Bantoid-lang-stub