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Wumboko
Kpwe (Mokpwe) is a Bantu language of Cameroon. It is mutually intelligible with Kole, and probably with Mboko (Wumboko) as well. There are multiple variants of the name: based on 'Kpwe' (''Bakpwe, Mokpwe''), on 'Kpe' (''Mokpe''), on 'Kweɾi' (''Kwedi, Kweli, Kwili, Kwiri, Bakwedi, Bakwele, Bakweri, Vakweli, Bekwiri''), as well as ''Ujuwa'' and ''Vambeng''. Phonology The Kpwe phonological inventory is as follows,Atindogbé (2013) A grammatical sketch of Mòkpè (Bakweri), ''African Study Monographs'', Suppl. 45: 5–163 Vowels Consonants §, the 'liquidized alveolar fricative', may be realized as , , or . This sound is rendered in some sources, and is cognate to in Bubia. and in parentheses are only found in loans, while is very uncommon and in many inflections freely alternates as . Tone Kpwe contrasts five tones on short syllables: high, downstep Downstep is a phenomenon in tone languages in which if two syllables have the same tone (for example, both with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Languages Of Cameroon
Cameroon is home to at least 250 languages, with some accounts reporting around 600. These include 55 Afro-Asiatic languages, two Nilo-Saharan languages, four Ubangian languages, and 169 Niger–Congo languages. This latter group comprises one Senegambian language ( Fulfulde), 28 Adamawa languages, and 142 Benue–Congo languages (130 of which are Bantu languages). French and English are official languages, a heritage of Cameroon's colonial past as a colony of both France and the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1961. Eight out of the ten regions of Cameroon are primarily francophone and two are anglophone. The percentage of French and English speakers is estimated by the Presidency of Cameroon to be 70% and 30% respectively. Cameroon is a Francophone and Anglophone country, where, as of 2024, 11.957 million (41.17%) out of 29.124 million people speak French. The nation strives toward bilingualism, but in reality very few (11.6%) Cameroonians are literate in both French and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mboko People
The Bamboko are a Bantu ethnic group of the Republic of Cameroon. They are part of the Sawa ethnic groups, those who live on the coast. The Bamboko probably moved to Mboko, the area southwest of Mount Cameroon, in the early 17th century. Predominant Bakweri, Mbonge and Isubu traditions claim they originated from this area, which supports the peoples' long shared histories and similar languages. They currently inhabit the west and northwest of the mountain, beginning at the villages of Sanje and Mukundage and continuing to the sea. This territory likes in the Fako and Meme divisions of the Southwest Province. Neighbouring the Bamboko to the east are the Bakweri and to the west are the Bakole and to the North are Oroko. The Bamboko are primarily subsistence farmers who toil the volcanic soils of Mount Cameroon to cultivate cocoyams, maize, manioc, oil palms, and plantains. The Bamboko speak Wumboko. The tongue is largely intelligible with Mokpwe and Bakole, and lin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bubia
The Bube language or Bubi, Bohobé, Bube–Benga or Fernandian (Bobe) is a Bantu language spoken predominately by the Bubi, a Bantu people native to, and once the primary inhabitants of Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea. The language was brought to Bioko from continental Africa more than three thousand years ago when the Bubi began settling on the island. It has around 50,000 speakers, with three variants: North, South and Central-East. It is noted for its tonal character and the divergence of words by gender. The language is also spoken by the Bubi native to Gabon and Cameroon. The Bube language is divided into six different dialects that vary in the northern and southern regions of Bioko Island. For example, in the North, people speak ''Rebola'' and its variations: ''Basile'', ''Banapa'' and ''Basupa''. However, in the North-East, ''Bakake'' is spoken. Bube is also spoken in a small area on the mainland closest to the island, where speakers are shifting to Wumboko. This has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sawabantu Languages
Sawabantu languages are a group of Bantu languages that are spoken in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The group consists mostly of zones A.20 and A.30 of Guthrie's classification, and most likely also part of zone A.10. According to Nurse and Philipps on (2003), the A.20 and A.30 languages, apart from the Bubi language, form a valid node. The most important of these languages is Duala, which is a vehicular language. Etymology The name ''Sawabantu'' is made up of two words: ''sawa'', which means "coast" in Duala, and ''Bantu''. The name was proposed in 1989 by the Cameroonian linguist Carl Ebobissé. Languages Besides the A.20 and A.30 languages, the Oroko dialect cluster of A.10 seems to be clearly connected to the Sawabantu group: : (A.10) Oroko; (A.20) Kpwe (Mokpwe, Bakweri)– Mboko (Bomboko, Wumboko)– Kole (Bakole), Duala (incl. Mungo dialect), Su (Isuwu), Limba (Malimba); (A.30) Tanga (Batanga), Yasa– Kombe, Benga The A.20 languages are spoken ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwe People
The Bakweri (or Kwe) are a Bantu ethnic group of the Republic of Cameroon. They are closely related to Cameroon's coastal peoples (the Sawa), particularly the Duala and Isubu. Early survey discussion of these topics may be found in Ardener 1956 and Dugast 1949 History Early population movements The Bakweri likely migrated to their present home east of the mountain in the mid-18th century. From the foothills, they gradually spread to the coast, and up the Mungo River and the various creeks that empty into it. In the process, they founded numerous villages, usually when individual families groups split off.Fanso 50. A rival Bakweri tradition says they descend from Mokuri or Mokule, a brother of the Duala's forebear Ewale, who migrated to the Mount Cameroon area for hunting. In addition, a few isolated villages, such as Maumu and Bojongo, claim some alternate descent and may represent earlier groups whom the expanding Bakweri absorbed. European contacts Portuguese traders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages, depending on the definition of Dialect#Dialect or language, "language" versus "dialect"."Guthrie (1967–71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nasal Stop
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majority of consonants are oral consonants. Examples of nasals in English are , and , in words such as ''nose'', ''bring'' and ''mouth''. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages. Definition Nearly all nasal consonants are nasal occlusives, in which air escapes through the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked (occluded) by the lips or tongue. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound. Rarely, non-occlusive consonants may be nasalized. Most nasals are voiced, and in fact, the nasal sounds and are among the most common sounds cross-linguistically. Voiceless nasals occur in a few languages such as Burmese, Welsh, Iceland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Downstep
Downstep is a phenomenon in tone languages in which if two syllables have the same tone (for example, both with a high tone or both with a low tone), the second syllable is lower in pitch than the first. Two main kinds of downstep can be distinguished. The first, more usually called automatic downstep, downdrift or catathesis, occurs when high and low tones come in the sequence H L (L) H; the second high tone tends to be lower than the first because of the intervening low-toned syllable. It is common in African languages, such as Chichewa. It has also been argued that the same phenomenon is heard in English sentences, if these sentences are pronounced with a falling intonation, for example ''I really believe Ebenezer was a dealer in magnesium'', or ''I bought blueberries, bayberries, raspberries, mulberries, and brambleberries''. Downstep proper, or non-automatic downstep, is another phenomenon found in many African languages, such as Igbo (see for an overview of downstep in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch (music), pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflection, inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation (linguistics), intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with ''phoneme''. Tonal languages are common in East Asia, East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific islands, Pacific. Tonal languages are different from pitch-accent languages in that tonal languages can have each syllable with an independent tone whilst pitch-accent languages may have one syllable in a word or morpheme that is more prominent t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic–Congo Languages
The Atlantic–Congo languages make up the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from Mande, Dogon, Ijoid, Siamou, Kru, the Katla and Rashad languages (previously classified as Kordofanian), and perhaps some or all of the Ubangian languages. Hans Gunther Mukanovsky's "Western Nigritic" corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo. In the infobox, the languages which appear to be the most divergent are placed at the top. The Atlantic branch is defined in the narrow sense (as Senegambian), while the former Atlantic branches Mel and the isolates Sua, Gola and Limba are split out as primary branches; they are mentioned next to each other because there is no published evidence to move them; Volta–Congo is intact apart from Senufo and Kru. ''Glottolog'', based primarily on Güldemann (2018), has a more limi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ''rest'') and semivowels like and (as in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in ''less''). Terminology Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term ''approximant'' in the 1960s, the terms ''frictionless continuant'' and ''semivowel'' were used to refer to non-lateral approximants. In phonology, ''approximant'' is also a distinctive feature that encompasses all sonorants except nasals, including vowels, taps, and trills. Semivowels Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms ''semivowel'' and ''glide'' are often used for these non-syllab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lateral Consonant
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larry''. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth. For the most common laterals, the tip of the tongue makes contact with the upper teeth (see dental consonant) or the upper gum (see alveolar consonant), but there are many other possible places for laterals to be made. The most common laterals are approximants and belong to the class of liquids, but lateral fricatives and affricates are also common in some parts of the world. Some languages, such as the Iwaidja and Ilgar languages of Australia, have lateral flaps, and others, such as the Xhosa and Zulu languages of Africa, have lateral clicks. When pronouncing the labiodental fricatives , the lip blocks th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
