Basaa language

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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]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

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

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  1. ↑ Basaa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
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