Bikya (also known as Furu) is a potentially extinct
Southern Bantoid language spoken in
Cameroon. It is one of the three, or four,
Furu languages
The Furu languages are a proposed group of poorly attested extinct or nearly extinct and otherwise unclassified Southern Bantoid languages of Cameroon. Suggested Furu languages are:
: Bikya (Furu), Bishuo, Busuu, ?Lubu
Word lists for the first t ...
. In 1986 four surviving speakers were identified, although only one (a man in his seventies) spoke the language fluently.
English linguist Dr. David Dalby filmed an 87-year-old
African woman who spoke Bikya as her native tongue. At the time, it was believed that she was the last Bikya speaker.
It, and presumably all of Furu, is perhaps a
Beboid language
The Beboid languages are any of several groups of languages spoken principally in southwest Cameroon, although two languages (Bukwen and Mashi) are spoken over the border in Nigeria. They are probably not most closely related to each other. The E ...
(Blench 2011).
Bibliography
*Breton, Roland (1995) 'Les Furu et leur voisins', ''Cahier Sciences Humaines'', 31, 1, 17–48.
*Breton, Roland (1993) "Is there a Furu Language Group? An investigation on the Cameroon-Nigeria Border", ''The Journal of West African Languages'', 23, 2, 97–98.
* Blench, Roger (2011
'The membership and internal structure of Bantoid and the border with Bantu' ''Bantu IV'', Humboldt University, Berlin.
References
Furu languages
Languages of Cameroon
Endangered languages of Africa
{{Bantoid-lang-stub