Kemezung
Native toCameroon
RegionNorthwest Province, Donga-Mantung Division, Southwest corner of Ako Subdivision, Northwest of Nkambé, town of Dumbu and village of Kwei.
Native speakers
3,540 (2008)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3dmo
Glottologkeme1240

Kemezung (Dumbo, Dumbu, Dzumbo, Kumaju) is a Southern Bantoid (Eastern Beboid) language of Cameroon. According to Ethnologue, it's 85% lexically similar to Bebe.[1]

Consonants

Kemezung has 19 "unmodified" consonants.[2] Cox also claims Kemezung has labialized, palatalized, and prenasalized consonants but does not list all of them.[3]

LabialCoronalPalatalVelarLabial-velarLaryngeal
Plosive Voiceless /t//k//k͡p/
Voiced /b//d//g//g͡b/
Affricate Voiceless /t͡s/[lower-alpha 1]
Voiced /d͡z/[lower-alpha 2]
Fricative /f//s/[lower-alpha 3]/h/
Nasal /m//n//ɲ//ŋ/
Approximant /l/[lower-alpha 4]/j/[lower-alpha 5]/w/
  1. ↑ /t͡s/ becomes [t͡ʃ] before /i/.
  2. ↑ /d͡z/ becomes [d͡ʒ] before /i/.
  3. ↑ /s/ becomes [ʃ] before /i/. It becomes [s̬] or [ɾ] between vowels root-medially.
  4. ↑ /l/ optionally becomes [d] in many words before /i/ root-medially.
  5. ↑ /j/ optionally becomes [ʒ] before /i/ root-medially.

Vowels

Kemezung has 9 phonemic vowels.[4]

FrontCentralBack
Close /i//u/
Close-mid /e//ɘ/[lower-alpha 1]/o/
Open-mid /ɛ//ɜ/[lower-alpha 2]/ɔ/
Open /ä/
  1. ↑ Cox uses ⟨ɨ⟩, which normally represents the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/.
  2. ↑ Cox uses ⟨ə⟩, which normally represents the mid central unrounded vowel /ə/.

Tone

Kemezung also has 7 (or possibly 8) tones.[5] There are three level tones (high, mid, and low), three falling tones (high-low, mid-low, and long mid-low), and one or two rising tones (low-mid and possibly mid-high).

Notes

  1. 1 2 Kemezung at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Cox (2005:2)
  3. ↑ Cox (2005:2–4)
  4. ↑ Cox (2005:5)
  5. ↑ Cox (2005:7–8)

References

  • Blench, Roger (2011). The membership and internal structure of Bantoid and the border with Bantu (PDF). Bantu IV, Humboldt University, Berlin.
  • Brye, Edward; Brye, Elizabeth (2004). "Intelligibility testing survey of Bebe and Kemezung and synthesis of sociolinguistic research of the Eastern Beboid cluster" (PDF). SIL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-07.
  • Cox, Bruce (2005). "Notes on the Phonology of Kemezung" (PDF). Yaoundé: SIL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-11-06.
  • Smoes, Christopher L. "A Sketch Grammar of the Kemezung language" (PDF). SIL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-12-08.


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