Jarawan Numerals: Implications for History and Internal Classification

Abstract: This article provides an overview of the numeral systems of Jarawan languages, an understudied group of languages spoken in Nigeria, and formerly in Cameroon. Lexical patterns and morphological micropatterns observed within this subset of the lexicon have implications for our understanding of Jarawan history, supporting the idea that there were two migrations of Jarawan speakers from Cameroon into Nigeria and suggesting that these migrations may have happened at very different times. This study complements others in demonstrating the value of incorporating linguistics, alongside archaeology, bioanthropology, and genomics, as a proxy in studies of paleodemography.