Tiv is aTivoid language spoken in some states inNorth Central Nigeria, with some speakers inCameroon. It had over 5.2 million speakers in 2024. The largest population of Tiv speakers are found inBenue state in Nigeria. The language is also widely spoken in some Nigerian states namely,Plateau,Taraba,Nasarawa,Cross River,Adamawa,Kaduna, andAbuja. It is by far the largest of theTivoid languages, a group of languages belonging to theSouthern Bantoid languages.

Source:^[2]

The first reference to the Tiv language (dzwa Tiv) was made bySigismund Koelle (1854) from liberated slaves fromSierra Leone.Johnston Harry H^[3] (1919) classified it as a peculiar language among theSemi-Bantu languages, and Talbot P. Amaury (1926) concurred.Roy Clive Abraham^[4][5] (1933), who has made the most complete linguistic study of Tiv, classifies it asBantu, stating that its vocabulary is more similar to the East African Nyanza group of Bantu languages than toEkoi or other neighbouring languages. Malherbe (1933) agrees with Abraham that Tiv is essentially Bantu.^[6]

All material on Tiv seems to point to a recent expansion, perhaps in the early 15th century.^[7]

Tiv is widely spoken in the States ofBenue,Nasarawa,Plateau,Taraba,Cross Rivers,Adamawa,Kaduna, andAbuja, Nigeria. Other parts of Nigeria also speak Tiv.

Tarkaa,Makurdi,Gwer East,Gwer West,Ukum,Logo,Konshisha,Gboko,Kwande,Vandeikya,Katsina Ala,Guma,Buruku, andUshongo Local Government Areas.

Doma,Nasarawa,Lafia,Obi,Keana, andAwe Local Government Areas

Tiv-speaking populations are found inLangtang South,Shendam,Qua’an-Pan andWase area councils.

Bali,Donga,Ibi,Gassol,Takum,Gashaka,Kurmi andWukari Local Government Areas.

Together with thousands of other Tivoid groups like theBatu,Abon,Bitare andAmbo in Sardauna Local government area.

Yala,Bekwarra,Obudu andObanliku Local Government Areas.

Together with thousands of other tivoid groups like theUtanga,Ceve or Becheve,Evant,Eman etc.

There are 1900 Tiv households with approximately 20,000 people at the south-western border of CameroonManyu division, withMamfe as its capital, which is 74 km away from the south eastern Nigerian border. The paramount ruler is Zaki Abaajul, who has the Tiv and Ulitsi as his subjects. The Cameronian Tiv are well educated and live inAnglophone Cameroon^[8] as their ancestral land, while a few others live in thefrancophone region. They are mostly farmers but others work in the government.^[9]

Although some Nigerian tiv people are unaware of some of the Tiv peoples of the Cameroon because of the international border but, these groups always regard themselves as Tiv. Some of them have an additional dialect to the main Tiv language. These Tiv groups are;Bitare,Mesaka,Iyive,Ceve or Becheve,Evant,Eman,Ipulo,Caka etc. They together with the Tiv in Nigeria share the sameculture,History,Religion, andTradition. They are basically the same people.^{[citation needed]}

Tiv speakers can understand each other across their territory, although the Hyarev people have some unique words distinct from other speakers. Regionalaccents (ham) exist.^[10]

• Vowel sounds are phonetically nasalized before nasal consonants.
• /a/ can be freely heard as[æ̃] or[ɑ̃] before a nasal consonant.^[11]

• /ɣ/ is heard phonetically as[x], but is often voiced as[ɣ].
• [ɱ] is heard in free variation in word-final positions.
• [d͡z] occurs in other dialects.^[12]

Tiv has three main tones (five if rising and falling are counted as separate tones instead of composites of existing tones).^[13] They are most importantly used in inflection.^[6]

The accents of Tiv are as follows:

• Ityoisha, spoken in the southeast, noted for its exaggeratedpalatalisation of vowels;
• Shitile, spoken by most Tiv east of theKatsina Ala River, apparently slower sounding than the other Tiv accents and slurs vowels into their neighbouring consonant;
• Iharev, which gives an exaggerated roll to the phoneme[r]~[l]
• Kparev, spoken in the centre and south-centre;
  • Kunav, a sub-group of Kparev, noted for its preference for[d͡ʒ] sounds where other Kparev use[d͡z].^[6]

Vocabulary, particularly plant and tool names, changes from one part of Tiv territory to the other.^[14]

Tiv has ninenoun classes.^[6]

• Tiv people
• Ate-u-tiv, a traditional Tiv hut used for reception and gathering

• R.C.Abraham, A Dictionary of the Tiv Language, Government of Nigeria 1940, republished by Gregg Press Ltd., Farnborough, Hants., England 1968.ISBN 0576116157

• Tiv-English Dictionary
• PanAfrican L10n page on Tiv

Tiv language test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Video and audio files, New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures Released and other bible study material in Tiv Language by Jehovah's Witnesses
• The bible in the tiv language
• Gospel
• Jesus film in tiv

• Languages of Nigeria
• Tivoid languages

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 25
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Languages with ISO 639-2 code
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from March 2025
• Pages with plain IPA