Introduction

This dictionary project is led by Babanki linguist and language activist Dr. Pius Akumbu with technical support from Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. It grew out of the elicitation of words started in 2005 by Christine DeVisser in collaboration with P. V. Adams, Awenti A. Tituwan, Mutan Gabriel, Ntang W. Thaddeus, and Vuwen Andrew Maley. 

The language

Babanki (preferred autonym: Kejom [kɘ̀d͡ʒɔ́m]) is a Central Ring Grassfields Bantu language (ISO 693-3: [bbk]) of North-West Cameroon. Approximately 39,000 people (Eberhard, Simons, and Fennig, 2022) speak the language in two settlements, namely, Kejom Ketinguh [kɘ̀d͡ʒɔ́m ↓kɘ́tíⁿɡùʔ] and Kejom Keku [kɘ̀d͡ʒɔ́m ↓kɘ́kù], also known as Babanki Tungoh and Big Babanki, respectively, but also to some extent in diaspora communities outside of Cameroon. The two main settlements’ dialects exhibit slight phonetic, phonological, and lexical differences but are mutually intelligible. 

Most speakers of Babanki also speak Cameroonian Pidgin English, which is increasingly used in all domains, even in the home (Akumbu & Wuchu 2015). Some speakers in Big Babanki are also proficient in Kom, a neighboring Central Ring language, depending on their level of engagement with Kom speakers nearby; speakers located in Francophone areas of Cameroon may also speak French. An orthography guide for Kejom has been developed (Akumbu 2008) and is currently used in literacy classes in the two settlements, as well as in an ongoing Bible translation effort. 

Phonology and orthography

The segmental phonology of Babanki is made up of 26 phonemic consonants and eight phonemic vowels. Of the 26 consonants, only the glottal stop (’) cannot occur in word-initial position. Six of the consonants (m, n, ŋ, f, s, ’) can occur in word-final position. Several consonant clusters occur in this language. They include prenasalized consonants (e.g. m̀bì ‘first’), palatalized consonants (e.g. əfyə̀ ‘cave’), labialised consonants (e.g. alwi ‘nostrils’), and a combination of prenasalization with either palatalization or labialization (e.g. ǹgyàmtə̀ ‘helper’, nə̀nchwì ‘afternoon’). Of the eight vowels, only two (a, ə) can occur word-initially. 

Five surface tone combinations: high, low, rising, high-falling, and low-falling are possible from the two underlying tones - high and low. According to the orthography, only the low tone, and the low-falling tone are marked by the grave accent. An exception to this is that noun prefixes are not marked since they always occur on a low tone when in isolation. The following orthography rules extracted from Akumbu (2008) are observed for the language.

1. Never write "c" alone, always write "ch".
2. The only consonants that can be word-final are "m", "n", "ŋ", "f", "s", and "’".
3. Never write the glottal stop "’" and "nz" word-initially.
4. If you hear a consonant before "f", "b", and "pf" always write "m".
5. If you hear a nasal consonant before "k" or "g", always write "n".
6. If you see "nk" or "ng" pronounce the "n" as "ŋ".
7. Always write the syllabic nasal with a tone mark, e.g. "ǹgwàn" ‘cane’.
8. Never mark tone on noun prefixes, e.g. "kəmbò"  ‘bag’

The transcription used in this dictionary is broadly the one used in the orthography. The orthographic symbols which are different from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) have the following equivalents:

IPA            Transcription

ʃ                 sh

tʃ               ch

dʒ              j

ɣ                gh

ʔ                ’

ɲ                ny

j                 y

References

Akumbu, Pius W. 2008. Kejom (Babanki) Orthography Statement. Yaoundé, Cameroon: CABTAL.

Akumbu, Pius W. & Cornelius W. Wuchu. 2015. Kejom (Babanki) Linguistic Practices in Farming Economies. Kansas City: Miraclaire Academic Publications.

Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2022. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Twenty-fifth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.