Documenting Endangered Yoruba Sub-Dialects in Cross River State: A Field Linguistics Study

The Yoruba communities of Cross River State represent a geographically isolated linguistic enclave whose sub-dialectal varieties have received virtually no documentation in the academic record, placing these speech forms at severe risk of undocumented extinction. This study undertakes systematic field documentation of endangered Yoruba sub-dialects spoken in Cross River State, South South Nigeria, targeting communities in Yala, Obanliku, and Ogoja local government areas, where small Yoruba-speaking settlements exist in a context dominated by Igbo, Yala, and other Cross River languages. Using endangered language documentation methodology endorsed by the Endangered Languages Project, data were collected from 30 elderly fluent speakers through recorded word lists, narrative texts, grammatical elicitation tasks, and life history interviews. The study applies descriptive linguistics and language vitality assessment frameworks to document phonological, lexical, and grammatical features of these sub-dialects and to assess their endangerment status. Existing Yoruba dialectological literature contains no peer-reviewed documentation of Cross River State Yoruba speech, representing an absolute documentation gap. This study produces the first systematic linguistic record of these communities. Findings are expected to reveal significant phonological and lexical divergence from standard Yoruba attributable to sustained contact with Cross River language features, alongside severe endangerment characterised by the absence of child speakers. The study will produce an archived sound and text database as supplementary research outputs. Recommendations will address urgent documentation funding and community language revitalisation support for these critically endangered Yoruba communities. Keywords: language documentation, endangered dialects, Yoruba, Cross River State, field linguistics.