The Fanji language, ''Chuufiè'' (''chufieʼ''), is a
Grassfields Bantu language and the language of the Bafanji people in the
Northwest Region of
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 ...
.
There are approximately 17,000 speakers. The language has a rich system of tonal morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
*Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
*Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
, including reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
involving adjectives
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...
.
Bafanji speakers, who number 8,500, call their language ''Chuufi''. It is spoken south of Ndop in Ngoketunjia
Ngo-Ketunjia is a department of Northwest Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of and as of 2005 had a total population of 187,348. The capital of the department lies at Ndop. Within the self-declared Federal Republic of Ambazonia ...
Department, Northwest Region. It is closely related to Bamali
Bamali village is one of the four villages that make up Ndop Central sub division and one of the thirteen villages of Ngoketunjia division of the North West region of Cameroon. Bamali village is located partly along the ring road from Bamenda ...
, Mengambo, and Bambalang.
Phonology
Consonants
References
*
Languages of Cameroon
Nun languages
{{gras-lang-stub