Did you know that Nigeria is the most linguistically diverse country in Africa? Boasting more than 500 languages, this African powerhouse is a hotspot for regional languages, with a multitude of minority languages spoken widely in their respective areas of the country. Nigeria’s indigenous languages hail from different roots—the majority of Nigeria’s languages are from the Niger–Congo family, but those spoken in the northernmost regions are often from the Afroasiatic or Nilo–Saharan families. Today’s language, Karai-karai, is one of Nigeria’s northern Afroasiatic languages.
Karai-karai has an estimated 1.8 million native speakers, most of whom belong to the Karai-karai ethnicity. It may also be spelled as Karekare or Kerrikerri, with native speakers calling their language bo karaikarai. Though Karai-karai is a minority language in Nigeria, it’s better supported and institutionalized than some other minority languages in the country, with some literary publications in the language. Access to translation services is limited—but we at TranslationServices.com are trying to combat that with our new Karai-karai translation services.
Contact us today if you’d like to see a free quote for our Karai-karai translation services.
Check out a brief breakdown of Karai-karai
Karai-karai is native to northeastern Nigeria—specifically, the states of Bauchi, Yobe, and Gombe. More speakers can be found in Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, Jigawa, Kano, and Nasarawa. Karai-karai belongs to the Afroasiatic family of languages, meaning that it’s related to Arabic and Hebrew, and indeed, much of Karai-karai’s lexicon shares the same roots as vocabulary in these two Semitic languages. However, as part of the family’s Chadic branch, it’s much more closely related to Hausa, which is spoken widely across most of northern Nigeria. When we zoom in a bit more, we find that Karai-karai is a Bole–Tangale language, closely related to Ngamo (60,000 speakers) and Bole (230,000 speakers), to the extent these are often considered derivatives of Karai-karai.
Today, Karai-karai is typically written in the Latin alphabet, albeit a modified one with a few new characters. Specifically, the Karai-karai alphabet contains the letters ɓ, ɗ, ƙ, r̃, ş, ʼw, and ʼy, and it omits the letters q, v, and x. Karai-karai vowels often also have accent marks: using a as an example, the language has à, â, á, ā, ā̀, and ā́. Historically, the language was written in Ajami, a modified Arabic script commonly used for languages in Africa. Karai-karai isn’t an easy language to translate, but our native-speaking translators are up for the challenge—so just reach out!
What kinds of Karai-karai translation services are we able to provide?
At TranslationServices.com, we believe in serving as many languages as possible—big and small alike. That’s why we cater to languages like Karai-karai, which many translation companies overlook. We’ve hired Karai-karai translators from all over northeastern Nigeria—Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, and beyond—to help you find the best translation services you can, available in various dialects of Karai-karai. Whether you’re looking for translation services into Karai-karai or from Karai-karai, our translators have the skills, experience, and passion to help you.
If you’re in a specific domain, such as academia, business, or literature, and you’re looking for specialized Karai-karai translation services in your field, just message us. We have a large and diverse team, so we may just have the right translation specialist for your niche. We work with academic documents such as research surveys and educational materials in a wide array of disciplines, just as we translate a plethora of business documents, from business plans to white papers, in a number of industries. We also work with creatives across different genres and media to translate their novels, poems, websites, apps, and more to or from Karai-karai. And if your text contains esoteric vocabulary, just let us know—we’ll try to match you with a subject-matter expert.
Why not get started with your Karai-karai translation project today? Send us a message to place an order!