Basaa language

Basaa (also spelled Bassa, Basa, Bissa), or Mbene, is a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon by the Basaa people. It is spoken by about 300,000 people in the Centre and Littoral regions.

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, ɓàsàa
Native toCameroon
RegionCentre and Littoral Provinces
Native speakers
300,000 (2005 SIL)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-2bas
ISO 639-3bas
Glottologbasa1284[2]
A.43a[3]

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. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Basa (Cameroon)". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  • Hyman, Larry M. (2003). "Basaá (A.43)". In Nurse, Derek; Philippson, Gérard (eds.). The Bantu Languages. Routledge. pp. 257–282. ISBN 0-7007-1134-1.
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