Basaa language

Basaa
Mbene
ɓasaá
Native to	Cameroon
Region	Centre and Littoral Provinces
Native speakers	300,000 (2005 SIL)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu (Zone A) Basaa languages (A.40) Basaa
Language codes
ISO 639-2	bas
ISO 639-3	bas
Glottolog	basa1284[2]
Guthrie code	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 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

1. Basaa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Basa (Cameroon)". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. 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.