Basaa language
For a Kru language spoken in Liberia and Sierra Leone, see Bassa language. For a Kainji language spoken in Nigeria, see Basa language.
| Basaa | |
|---|---|
| Mbene | |
| ɓasaá | |
| Native to | Cameroon |
| Region | Centre and Littoral Provinces |
Native speakers | 300,000 (2005 SIL)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 |
bas |
| ISO 639-3 |
bas |
| Glottolog |
basa1284[2] |
A.43a[3] | |
Basaa (also spelled Bassa, Basa, Bissa), or Mbene, is a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon by the Basaa people. It is spoken by about 300,000 people in Centre and Littoral regions.
Maho (2009) lists North and South Kogo as dialects.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i, iː | u, uː |
| Close-mid | e, eː | o, oː |
| Open-mid | ɛ, ɛː | ɔ, ɔː |
| Open | a, aː | |
Consonants
| Bilabial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Labial-velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | t | c, ɟ | k | kʷ, ɡʷ |
| Implosive | ɓ | ||||
| Fricative | s | x | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʷ |
| Prenasalized stop | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮɟ | ᵑɡ | |
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Approximant | j | w |
- When not root-initial and not after a pause, the voiceless stops /p t k/ are realized as voiced stops or voiced fricatives.
Tone
Basaa contrasts four tones: high, low, high-to-low (falling) and low-to-high (rising).
References
- ↑ Basaa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Basa (Cameroon)". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- Hyman, Larry M. (2003). "Basaá (A.43)". In Nurse, Derek; Philippson, Gérard. The Bantu Languages. Routledge. pp. 257–282. ISBN 0-7007-1134-1.
 |
Basaa language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
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