Blood is thicker than water

Many of the Ron stories I have recorded have a moral. The following story in the Daffo variety of Ron gives an example for the saying “Blood is thicker than water“, i.e. the bonds of family and common ancestry are stronger than the bonds between unrelated people. The story was told by Mr. Mafulul Lek in 1990.

How to court a girl in the ancient Ron culture

The following text in the Bokkos dialect of Ron was written down by Mr. Benjamin Dapel Matawal (seen here on a picture together with his family) in 1999. It is a description of the traditional customs surrounding courtship and marriage among the Ron.

Reading and writing the Ron language

In 2004, together with some Ron speakers, I have written a small booklet on “Reading and writing the Ron language”. You can download it here as a PDF-file. In order to be able to see some of the special characters, you need to also download the SIL Doulos Unicode font.

I will be pleased to read your comments and answer any questions you may have.

More Ron materials on the Internet

Dr. Roger Blench, a British scholar, has a website where he presents drafts of his papers and materials on a large number of Nigerian languages. Some of it is on or related to Ron languages:

• Reconstructing Ron
• Ron wordlists
• Ron dictionary

How Death came into the world

In cultures all around the world one can find mythical stories about the origin of death. According to many such stories in Africa,

“The supreme god meant for humans to be immortal, but through an unlucky mistake, they received death instead of eternal life. Some stories relate that the god told a cautious chameleon to carry the news of eternal life to earth, but a faster lizard with news of death arrived first. The Mende people of Sierra Leone say that a toad with the message “Death has come” overtakes a dog with the message “Life has come” because the dog stops to eat along the way. (African Mythology)

Here is a similar story in the Daffo dialect of Ron, told by Mr. Mafulul Lek.

How the Sha falls (“Farin Ruwa”) got their name

Have you ever seen the Sha falls, which are also called “Farin Ruwa“? Located at the southwestern escarpment of the Jos Plateau, it is a tourist attraction which some years ago even became a reason for dispute, as reported in a newspaper in 2003:

John 18-21 in Ron (Butura Dialect)

Here is another sample of scripture translated into Ron. The following is a translation of the Gospel of John, Chapter 18-21 by Rev. Daniel Bitrus, a speaker of the Butura dialect of Ron. I have done some minor changes on his original text to make it more readable for speakers of other Ron varieties, e.g. I have written word final “r”, which is dropped and replaced by vowel length in the Butura dialect.

The Passion and Easter Story in Ron-Bokkos

Translating the Bible into the Ron language has been on and off for the last 20-30 years. The first Ron speakers have been trained to do this already in the 80ies, at the Centre of Nigeria Bible Translation Trust in Jos. Translation Committees for the Bokkos and Daffo-Butura dialects were formed, a translation office was set up, small passages from scripture and other Christian texts were translated and distributed.

Waatan ti Ushuwar

Today is international women’s day. In order to honour all the hard-working women in Africa, I present a fairy tale about three women, again in the Daffo dialect of Ron. It was told by our friend, Mrs. Utawal Magwa (seen here on a picture) , in 1991. I recorded it and later transcribed it with the help of Mr. Mafulul Lek.

The Hare and the Crownbird

Here is another hare tale in the Daffo dialect of Ron. It was written down and recorded in 1992 by Mr. Mafulul Lek from Daffo. This time, the hare and the crownbird (Hausa: gauraka) are courting a girl. The hare tries to get rid of his rival by cheating. But his trick fails: the girl prefers to marry the crownbird.