The Miship people refer to themselves and their homeland as Miship. However, outsiders often incorrectly call both the people and their land “Chip,” a term that has no meaning in the Miship language. The letter C does not exist in the Miship orthography. Consequently, when adapting foreign words that contain the letter C with the sound /tʃ/, Miship naturally renders this sound as SH, pronounced /ʃ/. For example, the typical Miship pronunciation of the English word cheap /tʃɪp/ is realized as /ʃɪp/.
Bible Translation
The New Testament is wholly translated into Miship by Mast Media Methodology, but it is yet to undergo the due process of Bible Translation; the peer checking, community testing, orthography checking and the consultant checking.
The Oral Bible Translation is in progress. The Miship Bible Translation Team is in partnership with NBTT for this project.
Activities
The traditional activities of Miship people included farming, blacksmithing, weaving, carving among others but palm wine tapping, trading and farming are now the major activities in the Miship land. [citation needed]
Migration
Oral tradition states that they migrated from Kanem-Bornu to their present homeland with other tribes, Ngas, Mupun, and Mwaghavul.
Names
Miship names are generally unisex, so in order to identify the gender of the bearer of a name, the contracted form (which can be modified by a masculine prefix, Da or a feminine prefix Na to indicate that the name bearer is a male or female respectively) is used. For example, for a man and a woman both sharing:
Naanɗi, the man would be Danaan, and the woman Nanaan.
Ɗenlong, the man would be Daɗen, and the woman Naɗen.
Shaakagham, the man would be Dashaa and the woman Nashaa.
In the above examples the contracted forms of the names (which are usually the root word of the names) are Naan, Ɗen and Shaa respectively. Therefore, Da is added to each of them to produce Danaan, Daɗen and Dashaa as the male restricted variants of the names Naanɗi, Ɗenlong and Shakagham respectively. And Na is added to each of them to produce Nanaan, Naɗen and Nashaa as the female restricted variants of the names Naanɗi, Ɗenlong and Shakagham respectively.
Words
English - Miship
God - Naan
father - ndaa
child - laa
girl - larep
boy - laa
wash - vwang
person - gurum
rain - fwan
children - jep
food - sɨ
food - mun
food - gom
rice - kapaa
acha - kɨzuk
soup - tok
chicken - koo
dog - as
goat - ɨɨ
meat - luu
king - long
animal - long
animal - luu
wild animal - luu ɗem
Luu can be meat from animals for example, luu koo means chicken (meat). Luu can also refer to animal e.g luu in the following statement stands for animal: "Mmee a luu ɗe mmee a gurum ma" meaning, "Neither of the two (persons in comparison) is an animal (A Miship proverb meaning "People should be treated equally").
Phrases/Clauses
What is your name - Sɨm gɨ a we e? (masculine) or Sɨm yi a we e? (femiminine)
Good night - Naan yaghal kɨ mun, Mu foghot ɓit or Naan ep mun
Bye - Ɗang mu kaat
Good morning - Teer shaghap a? or Yaghal gwe a?
Thank you - Plangɓwer
I am hungry - Neen ni pɨ laá n'nan
Numbers
1) One - kɨmee or mmee
2) Two - vɨl or nvɨl
3) Three - kun
4) Four - feer
5) Five - paat
6) Six - pemee
7) Seven - poghovɨl
8) Eight - poghokun
9) Nine - poghofaar
10) Ten - sar
11) Eleven - sarpoo-kɨmee or sarkaa-kɨmee
20) Twenty - yagurum
21) Twenty-one - yagurum kɨ kɨmee
30) Thirty - yagurum kɨ sar
31) Thirty-one - yagurum kɨ sarpoo-kɨmee or yagurum kɨ sarkaa-kɨmee
40) Forty - yakgurum vɨl
41) Forty-one - yakgurum vɨl kɨ kɨmee
50) Fifty - yakgurum vɨl kɨ sar
60) Sixty - yakgurum kun
70) Seventy - yakgurum kun kɨ sar
71) Seventy-one - yakgurum kun kɨ sarpoo-kɨmee or yakgurum kun kɨ sarkaa-kɨmee
