Baldemu, or Mbazlam, is a nearly extinct

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

language spoken in northern

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 ...

. Baldamu is spoken in Bogo commune,

Diamaré Diamaré is a department of Far North (''Extreme-Nord'') Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of 4,665 km and at the 2005 Census had a total population of 642,227. The capital of the department is at Maroua. Subdivisions T ...

department, Far North Region by only 5 speakers as of 2012. Speakers have been shifting to

Fulfulde Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ; Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 36.8 million people as a set of various diale ...

Name

The language is (or was) known as ''Baldemu'' or ''Baldare'' to its speakers.Brye, E. (2003)
A rapid appraisal language survey of the Baldemu language
SIL Electronic Survey Reports, 15, 13. It is sometimes rendered ''Baldamu, Balda, Mbazlam,'' or ''Mbazla''. Baldamu is mentioned in Bryan and Westermann's ''Handbook of African Languages'' under the name ''Balda'', suspected to be only a toponym. It is most closely related to Giziga, Mofu Duvangar, and Mofu Gudur according to C. Seignobos and H. Tourneux.

Status

Since migrating from the surrounding mountains to the village of Balda, Baldemu speakers have shifted to

. Baldemu speakers who migrated to

Kaélé Kaélé is a town in Cameroon's Far North Province, on the Diamaré Plain at . It lies near the Chadian border and 104 km south of Maroua. The town has a population of roughly 30,600 and is the capital of the Mayo Kani division. The cottonsee ...

similarly shifted to

Mundang Mundang is an Mbum language of southern Chad and northern Cameroon, spoken by the Mundang people. The Gelama dialect of Cameroon may be a separate language. Distribution Mundang, spoken in Cameroon by 44,700 speakers (SIL 1982), is mainly spoke ...

References

External links

Baldemu
at the Endangered Languages Project Biu-Mandara languages Languages of Cameroon Endangered Afroasiatic languages Endangered languages of Africa {{BiuMandara-lang-stub

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Further reading

External links