of years to separate, in the same general geographical location from its about six most closely related dialects and stated that as a sub-unit, they required probably more thousands of years earlier to separate from other members of the "Kataf group" like Gyong, Hyam, Duya and Ashe (Koro) who are little intelligible to them. The stability of language and other culture traits in this region of Nigeria has been recognized. Dialects Tyap has a number of dialects, including: Phonology The Tyap alphabet (Zwunzwuo A̱lyem Tyap ji) had 39 letters, as drafted by the Tyap Literacy Committee (TLC) during the early 1990s: However, a current development as of 2018, has the Tyap Basic Alphabetical Chart reduced to 24, as follows: The letter "ch" would henceforth be represented by the symbol "c", without the "h". All others remain the same. Vowels The seven vowels of Tyap may either be short or long monophthongs sounds. The language has five (or six) diphthongs: . Consonants The language has over 80 monographic and digraph labialized and palatalized consonant sounds, classified into fortis and lenis modifications. The following table contains the main basic consonant sounds of Tyap: Syntax Tyap has the SVO constituent order type as illustrated below in the first given example: Words associated with the alphabet Common phrases and sentences Comparison of dialects Comparing the cognate percentages between Kaje (Jju), Katab ("Mabatado" Tyap) and Kagoro (Gworok) on the Swadesh wordlist consisting of 118 items of core basic vocabulary, Wurm (1971), in his remark stated that, the cognate percentages indicate that the three ethnic groups speak dialects of the same language. Percentages of cognates on the Swadesh wordlist: Wurm (1971). With a further comparison of their kinship terminologies, McKinney (1983:291), after comparing 174 entries between the above three found only eight to be non-cognate. Percentages of kingship cognate terms: McKinney (1983:291). Below are comparisons made by Akau (2020) between the seven Tyap core dialects and Jju. Numbers 0: // 1: (also ) 2: (also ) 3: (also ) 4: (also ) 5: (also ) 6: 7: 8: (or ) 9: 10 to 100 The numbers 11 to 19 are created by adding 1–9 to 10 with the middle (often shortened in pronunciation to and the next a̱, e.g. in , being silent) to the adjoining number, but usually each word is written in full: e.g. (15). 10: 11: 12: 13: 14: 15: 16: 17: 18: