Kom language (Cameroon)
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]
| Kom | |
|---|---|
| Itaŋikom | |
| Native to | Cameroon |
| Region | North-West Province |
Native speakers | 210,000 (2005)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bkm |
| Glottolog | komc1235 |
Phonology
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.
| 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
- Kom at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- Shultz, George (1997). Kom Language Grammar Sketch Part 1 (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique (SIL).
- Shultz, George (June 1993). Notes on the Phonology of the Kom Language (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique.
- Kawuldim, Kimbi Paul (2008). Relativization in Kom (PDF). Nairobi: Nairoby Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. p. 17.
- Chia, Emmanuel N.; Kimbi, Joseph C. (1992). Guide to the Kom Alphabet: Kom Language Reading and Writing Book (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique.