Bade language

Bade (also spelled Bede, Bedde, or Bode) is a West Chadic language spoken by the Bade people in Yobe State and Jigawa State, Nigeria. Their traditional ruler is the Emir of Bade. Dialects are Gashua Bade (Mazgarwa), Southern Bade (Bade-Kado), Western Bade (Maagwaram), and extinct Shirawa. Speakers are shifting to Hausa. Blench first considered Shirawa to be a distinct language, but in later works showed that a manuscript wordlist proves it was merely a dialect of Bade.

Bade is a tonal language. Each syllable of a noun is specified for high, low, rising, or falling tone. However, verbs are assigned tones based on their tense.