Kemezung language

Kemezung
Native to	Cameroon
Region	Northwest 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 family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Eastern Beboid Kemezung
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dmo
Glottolog	keme1240

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]

		Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Labial–velar	Glottalic
Plosive	voiceless		t		k	k͡p
	voiced	b	d		g	g͡b
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s[a]
	voiced		d͡z[b]
Fricative		f	s[c]				h
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant			l[d]	j[e]		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]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	ɘ[a]	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɜ[b]	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. 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.