Language Maintenance Efforts for Tiv Language Among Diaspora Tiv Communities in Abuja

The migration of Tiv speakers from Benue State to Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory has created a diaspora community whose linguistic landscape is shaped by the competing pressures of Tiv language maintenance, Hausa lingua franca use, and English dominance in formal institutional contexts. This study examines language maintenance efforts among Tiv diaspora communities in Abuja, focusing on the strategies deployed by Tiv cultural associations, families, and religious communities to sustain Tiv language use across generations. A mixed-methods approach combined a survey questionnaire administered to one hundred and fifty Tiv residents in the Karu, Kubwa, and Nyanya districts of Abuja with in-depth interviews with fifteen community leaders and association officials. Survey findings indicate that second-generation Tiv residents in Abuja show significantly lower Tiv proficiency and daily use rates than first-generation migrants, consistent with a pattern of intergenerational language attrition. However, active maintenance efforts are documented in organized contexts including Tiv cultural association meetings, church services conducted partly in Tiv, and structured home language use rules reported by approximately thirty-four percent of surveyed parents. The study identifies social media as an emerging maintenance resource, with Tiv-language WhatsApp groups and YouTube channels cited by younger respondents as important Tiv language exposure channels. The findings contribute to the literature on urban language maintenance in Nigerian internal migration contexts. Keywords: language maintenance, Tiv language, diaspora community, Abuja, intergenerational transmission.