Kom | |
---|---|
Itaŋikom | |
Native to | Cameroon |
Region | North-West Province |
Native speakers | 210,000 (2005) [1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
bkm |
Glottolog |
komc1235 |
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]
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 |
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Close | i | y | ɨ | u |
Close-mid | e | œ | o | |
Open | æ | a |
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.
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]
Kom | |
---|---|
Itaŋikom | |
Native to | Cameroon |
Region | North-West Province |
Native speakers | 210,000 (2005) [1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
bkm |
Glottolog |
komc1235 |
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]
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 |
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Close | i | y | ɨ | u |
Close-mid | e | œ | o | |
Open | æ | a |
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.
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]