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] |
|
Niger–Congo
| |
| 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. It is spoken by about 300,000 people in Centre and Littoral provinces.
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)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Basa (Cameroon)". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- Hyman, Larry M. (2003). "Basaá (A.43)". In Nurse, Derek and Philippson, Gérard (ed.). The Bantu Languages. Routledge. pp. 257–282. ISBN 0-7007-1134-1.
 |
Basaa language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |