Gwari (Gbari and Gbagyi) is one of the major languages of central Nigeria, and the Gwari are one of the
most widespread and numerous peoples, with settlements in Plateau, Kaduna, Niger, Kogi States and the
Federal Capital Territory. A long time ago, in 1909, Major Edgar prepared a dictionary and grammatical
notes on the Gbagyi dialect spoken at Kuta. Despite this, to date, little has been written about it from a
modern linguistic point of view. The only major studies that exist are Hyman & Magaji (1970) and James
(1990). James contains a valuable bibliography of publications in and about the language. Blench (1989)
illustrates the place of Gbari in the Nupoid language family.
This is a printout of a draft lexicon of the Gbari dialect spoken near Kwali -Sumwakpna. It also includes
lexical items from closely related dialects, especially Zubakpna, where these differ other than by a
predictable sound-change. The feature of Gbari that is most perplexing when trying to establish a standard
form is the immense variety in both words, sound-patterns and tone from one area to another. In this version
of the lexicon, tones are marked only occasionally. The reason for this is that the words in the lexicon have
been collected over a long period. At present, the tone is being checked so that the system of marking it will
be consistent throughout. Unless a word is specifically marked it should be treated as unmarked.
This is intended for checking and comment only and should not be considered a finished document.