Iyasa (Yasa, Yassa) is a Bantu language spoken in

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

and Equatorial Guinea by the Iyasa and Ndowe coastal fishing peoples. It is also spoken by

Pygmies In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...

, perhaps Babongo, in

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the nort ...

. Approximately 3,000 people speak Iyasa, though some note that this number may be an overestimation. Iyasa also goes by the names Bongwe, Lyaasa, and Maasa. Dialects are ''Bweko, Vendo, Bodele, Marry, One, Asonga, Bomui, Mogana, Mooma, Mapanga''. It may in turn be a dialect of Kombe. Speakers report that Kombe and Iyasa are almost perfectly mutually intelligible.

Classification

Dieu and Renaud (1993) classify Iyasa as a Sawabantu language (A.30 in Guthrie classification).Dieu, Michel, and Patrick Renaud. 1993. ''Situation linguistique en Afrique centrale, inventaire pre@liminaire: Le Cameroun.'' In Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun. Yaounde@: ACCT-CERDOTOLA-DGRST.

Geographic Distribution

Iyasa is spoken along the coast of Cameroon south of

Kribi Kribi is a beach resort and sea port in Cameroon. Location The coastal town of Kribi lies on the Gulf of Guinea, in Océan Department, South Province, at the mouth of the Kienké River. This location, lies approximately , by road, south of ...

, including in the city of Campo. It is also spoken across the Ntem River in Equatorial Guinea. The northernmost Iyasa village is Lolabe, 31 km south of Kribi.

Phonology

Iyasa has a seven-vowel system: It also has 22 phonemic consonants:

Grammar

Noun classes

Iyasa has 12

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...

es, as outlined in the table below (adapted from Bôt 2011 and Bouh Ma Sitna 2004):

References

External links

Iyasa page
at the

Endangered Languages Project The Endangered Languages Project (ELP) is a worldwide collaboration between indigenous language organizations, linguists, institutions of higher education, and key industry partners to strengthen endangered languages. The foundation of the proj ...

Homepage of the Iyasa language committee

Etomba a Iyasa Facebook group
* Paradisec has an open access collection of

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...

's materials
RB5
that includes Yasa language materials Definitely endangered languages Languages of Cameroon Languages of Equatorial Guinea Languages of Gabon Sawabantu languages {{EquatorialGuinea-stub