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. 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

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
Basaa language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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