Kom language (Cameroon)

Kom
Itaŋikom
Native toCameroon
RegionNorth-West Province
Native speakers
210,000 (2005)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3bkm
Glottologkomc1235
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The Kom language (also Itaŋikom) is the language spoken by the Kom people in Northwest Province in Cameroon. It is classified as a Central Ring language of the Grassfields, Southern Bantoid languages in the Niger-Congo language family.[2] Kom is a tonal language with three tones.[2]

Phonology

Consonants

Kom consonants[3]
  Bilabial Labio-
dental 		Alveolar Palatal Labial-
velar 		Velar
Plosive   b     t d c ɟ     k ɡ
Fricative     f v s z           ɣ
Nasal   m       n   ɲ       ŋ
Approximant               j   w    
Lateral           l            

Vowels

Kom vowels[3][4]
  Front Central Back
Close i y ɨ u
Close-mid e œ   o
Open æ a

Orthography

Kom uses a 29-character Latin-script orthography based on the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages.[4] It contains 20 single characters from the ISO set, six digraphs, and three special characters: barred I (Ɨɨ), eng (Ŋŋ), and an apostrophe (’). The digraphs ae and oe are also written as ligatures æ and œ, respectively.

Kom alphabet[5]
Letters a ae b ch d e f g gh i ɨ j ’ k l m n ŋ ny o oe s t u ue v w y z
IPA[2] /a/ /æ/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/ /ɣ/ /i/ /ɨ/ /ɟ/ /ʔ/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ŋ/ /ɲ/ /o/ /œ/ /s/ /t/ /u/ /y/ /v/ /w/ /j/ /z/

The orthography is mostly phonemic, although the characters ae, oe, ue, and ’ represent allophonic variations: the three vowel digraphs are the product of vowel coalescence, and the apostrophe represents the glottal stop, a syllable-final variant of /k/.

Although Kom has eight phonetic tones,[3] only two are marked in writing: the low tone [˨] is written with a grave accent (◌̀) over the vowel (e.g. kàe [kæ̀] "four"), and the high-low falling tone [˦˨] is written with a circumflex (◌̂) over the vowel (e.g. kâf [kâf] "armpit").[5]

References

  1. ^ Kom at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c Shultz, George (1997). Kom Language Grammar Sketch Part 1 (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique (SIL).
  3. ^ a b c Shultz, George (June 1993). Notes on the Phonology of the Kom Language (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique.
  4. ^ a b Kawuldim, Kimbi Paul (2008). Relativization in Kom (PDF). Nairobi: Nairoby Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. p. 17.
  5. ^ a b Chia, Emmanuel N.; Kimbi, Joseph C. (1992). Guide to the Kom Alphabet: Kom Language Reading and Writing Book (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique.

Bibliography

Kom language (Cameroon) test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator


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