The Beboid languages are any of two families of

Southern Bantoid languages Southern Bantoid (or South Bantoid) is a branch of the Bantoid language family. It consists of the Bantu languages along with several small branches and isolates of eastern Nigeria and west-central Cameroon (though the affiliation of some branch ...

spoken principally in southwest

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

, although two (Bukwen and Mashi) are spoken over the border in southeast

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. The Eastern Beboid languages may be most closely related to the Tivoid and

Momo Momo may refer to: Geography * Momo (department), Cameroon, a division of Northwest Province * Momo, Gabon, a town in the Woleu-Ntem province * Momo, Piedmont, a town in the province of Novara, Italy People Given name or nickname Athletes * ...

groups. The Western Beboid languages may be closer to Ekoid and

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

. Previous research includes a study of

noun classes 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 ...

in Beboid languages by

Jean-Marie Hombert Jean-Marie is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Jean-Marie Carroll (born 1956), English musician and composer * Jean-Marie Abgrall (born 1950), French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic med ...

(1980),

Larry Hyman Larry M. Hyman (born September 26, 1947, in Los Angeles, California) is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in phonology and has particular interest in African languages. Educ ...

(1980, 1981), a dissertation by Richards (1991) concerning the

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

of three eastern Beboid languages (Noni, Ncane and Nsari), Lux (2003) a Noni lexicon and Cox (2005) a phonology of Kemezung. The Largest Language is the

Fang A fang is a long, pointed tooth. In mammals, a fang is a modified maxillary tooth, used for biting and tearing flesh. In snakes, it is a specialized tooth that is associated with a venom gland (see snake venom). Spiders also have external fangs, ...

Language of

Languages

SIL International SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics International) is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, to expan ...

survey reports have provided more detail on Eastern and Western Beboid (Brye & Brye 2002, 2004; Hamm et al. 2002) and Hamm (2002) is a brief overview of the group as a whole. Eastern Beboid is clearly valid; speakers recognise the relationship between their languages, their distribution is the result of recent population movements and linguistically they are similar, and they are close to the Bantu languages. The term "Beboid" sometimes refers specifically to this group. Western Beboid is not as tight-knit, and appears to be closer to the

Grassfields languages The Grassfields languages (or Wide Grassfields languages) are a branch of the Southern Bantoid languages spoken in the Western High Plateau of Cameroon and some parts of Taraba state, Nigeria. Better known Grassfields languages include the East ...

. They may be called "Yemne-Kimbi" when the eastern group is called just "Beboid" (Di Carlo & Good 2012). See also Blench (2025). *Beboid **Eastern Beboid (Beboid) *** Cung, Bebe– Kemezung, Naki,

Saari Saari means ''island'' in Finnish and may refer to *Saari (name) *Saari, Finland, a former municipality *Saari, Estonia, a village *Saari language in Cameroon *Tarujen Saari, a Finnish folk-rock group *''Saari Bhool Hamari Thi'', a 2013 Pakistani d ...

–

Noni ''Morinda citrifolia'' is a fruit-bearing tree in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, native to Southeast Asia and Australasia, which was spread across the Pacific by Polynesian sailors. The species is now cultivated throughout the tropics and widel ...

(Ncane-Mungong-Noone), Fio,

Mbuk ''Mountain Biking UK'' (often shortened to ''MBUK'') is a British mountain biking magazine published by Our Media. It is currently the UK's best-selling mountain bike magazine, with a circulation of 18,471 (ABC: Jan – Dec 2022). History an ...

**Western Beboid (Yemne-Kimbi) ***

*** Mundabli, Buu, Koshin and apparently Bukwen *** Mungbam and Missong *** Mbuʼ (Ajumbu) and

Lung The lungs are the primary Organ (biology), organs of the respiratory system in many animals, including humans. In mammals and most other tetrapods, two lungs are located near the Vertebral column, backbone on either side of the heart. Their ...

Also spoken in the area is Bikya (Furu), one of the

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 language, Bikya (Furu), Bishuo language, Bishuo, Busuu la ...

, and

Kung Kung or Küng may refer to: * ǃKung people * ǃKung language * Kung (Haida village), an historical village of the Haida people of the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada; also Kung Indian Reserve No. 11 at the same location * Ku ...

, one of the

Ring languages The Ring or Ring Road languages, spoken in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon, form a branch of the Narrow Grassfields languages. The best-known Ring language is Kom language (Cameroon), Kom. The family is named after the old Ring Road (Cameroon ...

Names and locations (Nigeria)

Below is a list of language names, populations, and locations (in

only) from Blench (2019).

Bibliography

* Blench, Roger, 2011
'The membership and internal structure of Bantoid and the border with Bantu'
''Bantu IV'', Humboldt University, Berlin. *Blench, Roger. n.d.
Beboid word lists
'. * Blench, Roger, 2025. ''The classification of the Bukwen language uzspoken in Mairogo, SE Nigeria'' *Brye, Edward and Elizabeth Brye. 2002. "Rapid appraisal and intelligibility testing surveys of the Eastern Beboid group of languages (Northwest Province)." SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-019. http://www.sil.org/silesr/2002/019/ *Pierpaolo Di Carlo & Jeff Good. 2012
What are we trying to preserve?: Diversity, change, and ideology at the edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields
*Good, Jeff, & Jesse Lovegren. 2009
'Reassessing Western Beboid'
Bantu III. *Good, Jeff, & Scott Farrar. 2008
'Western Beboid and African language classification'
LSA. *Hamm, Cameron, Diller, J., Jordan-Diller, K. & F. Assako a Tiati. 2002. A rapid appraisal survey of Western Beboid languages (Menchum Division, Northwest Province). SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002-014. http://www.sil.org/silesr/2002/014/ *Hamm, C. 2002. Beboid Language Family of Cameroon and Nigeria: Location and Genetic Classification. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2002 *Hombert, Jean-Marie. 1980. Noun Classes of the Beboid Languages. In Noun classes in the Grassfields Bantu borderland, SCOPIL 8. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.

References

{{authority control Languages of Cameroon Languages of Nigeria