Grassland languages
The grassland languages form a large subunit of the southern bantoid languages , a branch of the Benue-Congo languages , which in turn belong to the Niger-Congo language family .
The approximately 70 grassland languages are spoken by around 2.5 million people in the Cameroon grasslands in the west of the country of Cameroon . Larger languages (with 100–300,000 speakers) are mainly found in the Bamileke group ; these include Ghomala , Yemba, Medumba , Fe'fe ' and Ngiemboon . Other languages with at least 100,000 speakers are Bamun , Ngemba (including Bafut ), Meta ' , Kom and Lamnso'.
Position of the prairie languages within the Niger-Congo
- Niger-Congo > Volta-Congo> Benue-Congo> East-Benue-Congo> Bantoid-Cross> Bantoid> South-Bantoid> Grassland languages
Internal classification of prairie languages
-
Grasslands
- West Momo : Ambele , Atong , Busam
- Menchum : Befang (Menchum)
-
Grassland in the strict sense
-
Bamileke-Nkam
-
Bamileke : Ghomala (. 250 thousand), Yemba (. 300 thousand), Medumba Language (. 210 thousand), Fe'fe ' (. 125 thousand), Ngiemboon Language (. 100 thousand),
Ngomba (65 thousand.), Ngombale language (65 Th.), Ngwe (50 th.), Mengaka (20 th.), Nda'nda (10 th.), Kwa ' (Bakwa) -
Ngemba : Ngemba (70 thousand), Mendankwe (10 thousand), Pinyin (25 thousand), Bafut (50 thousand), Bambili (10 thousand), Bamukumbit (19 thousand),
Bambuluwe , Kpati † - Nkambe : Limbum (80 thousand), Yamba (40 thousand), Mfumte (25 thousand), Ndaktup , Dzodinka , Kwaja, Mbe '
- Well : Bamun (200 thousand), Mungaka (50 thousand), Baba (15 thousand), Bambaölang (15 thousand), Bagolan (10 thousand), Bafanji (10 thousand), Bamali , Bamenyam
-
Bamileke : Ghomala (. 250 thousand), Yemba (. 300 thousand), Medumba Language (. 210 thousand), Fe'fe ' (. 125 thousand), Ngiemboon Language (. 100 thousand),
- Momo : Meta ' (100 thousand), Mundani (35 thousand), Ngie (30 thousand), Ngwo (25 thousand), Menka (15 thousand), Ngishe, Njen (Njem), Ngamambo
- ring
- Fum
- Nde-Gbite
- Viti
-
Bamileke-Nkam
Numbers of speakers below 10,000 are not specified.
See also
literature
- Joseph Greenberg: The Languages of Africa. Mouton, The Hague and Indiana University Center, Bloomington 1963.
- Bernd Heine and others (ed.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981.
- Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse (eds.): African Languages. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press 2000.
In it: Kay Williamson and Roger Blench: Niger-Congo. - John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.): The Niger-Congo Languages: A Classification and Description of Africa's Largest Language Family. University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 1989.
Therein: John R. Watters and Jacqueline Leroy: Southern Bantoid. - Patrick Bennett and Jan Sterk: South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification. Studies in African Linguistics. 1977.