Manenguba languages

The Manenguba languages, also known as the Mbo cluster, are a group of closely related Bantu languages spoken on and around the Manenguba mountain range in south-western Cameroon.
The people speaking the various Manenguba languages belong to the following tribes or nations: Mienge, Mbo,
Basossi, Bakossi, Elung, Nninong, Mousmenam, Manengouba, Bareko, Manehas, Bakaka, Balondo, Babong and Bafun. The population speaking the Manenguba languages was estimated in 1984 to be about 230,000 people.
According to Hedinger, there are at least 23 different Manenguba languages and dialects. The best known of these, and the first to have a grammar written for it, is Akoose, spoken in a wide area to the west of the mountain.

Name of the languages

The name "Manenguba languages" was first used by Harry Johnston in his work A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages. Johnston divided the languages into three groups: Balung-Bafo ; Bakosi ; and Bangtangte. However, Balung-Bafo is no longer considered part of the Manenguba group.
The term "Mbo Cluster" was used by Malcolm Guthrie in 1953, following the generalised use of the term by G. Tessmann in 1932. However, the name Mbo properly applies only to dialects in the north and north-east area of the region and is found objectionable by Manenguba speakers from other areas. It therefore seems unsatisfactory as a designation for the languages as a whole.
Another name, "Ngoe", was proposed by Erhardt Voeltz c.1975, after the name of the legendary ancestor of some of the tribes. However, this name also has not gained acceptance, since not all the Manenguba tribes consider him to be their ancestor; in particular, the Mbo consider that they are descended from Mbo.

Languages

A lexico-statistical study by the Swiss linguist Robert Hedinger showed that the various languages can be classified as follows:

North-Eastern Group
North-Western Group
Central Group: Eastern Cluster
Central Group: Western Cluster

The languages of the Eastern Cluster are closely related and can be considered as dialects of the same language, although they have no common name. In the Western Cluster, most of the languages are also closely related, although Mbo of Ekanang, situated on the north-east side of the mountain, stands slightly apart from the others.
According to Hedinger, the Bafaw-Balong language included in Guthrie zone A.15 for cultural reasons needs to be excluded from Manenguba on linguistic grounds; Maho separates it as A.141. Hedinger also excludes Lekongo, spoken in a region between the North-West Group and the North-East Group, on the grounds that its vocabulary has few words in common with the other languages. Using a modified version of the 100-word and 200-word Swadesh lists, Hedinger found that Lekongo has around 50% of core vocabulary shared with the Manenguba languages, whereas amongst the Manenguba languages themselves as defined above around 67%–95% of core vocabulary is shared between one language and another.
There are many loan words from English, French and Douala. When speaking of technical subjects, speakers will often revert to Pidgin English or English.

Early descriptions

The first European record of a Manenguba language was made by Hannah Kilham, a teacher from Yorkshire who taught in Sierra Leone, in 1828. She collected vocabularies of up to 79 words in 30 different African languages, one of which, called Moko, with 67 words, has been identified as a Manenguba dialect of the Eastern cluster, perhaps Mwahed, Mkaa', Belon, or Babong.
Another collection of vocabularies was made by a missionary John Clarke, working in the nearby island of Fernando Pó, published in 1848. It contains words in ten dialects which appear to be Manenguba or closely related to it.
A more extensive record of 280 Manenguba words and phrases, in three different dialects, was made by the German missionary Sigismund Koelle working in Sierra Leone, and published as part of his work Polyglotta Africana in 1854. He called the language itself Mokō, like Hannah Kilham, and the three dialects Ngoteng, Melong, and Nhālemōe. The first two of these dialects appear to be from the Eastern cluster, perhaps Mwahed, Mkaa' or Belon, while the third is from the Western cluster, and is close to Akoose, Ninong, or Mwamenam.
The first descriptive grammar of a Manenguba language was made by the German missionary Heinrich Dorsch, who published a Grammatik der Nkosi-Sprache in 1910/11, as well as German-Nkosi and Nkosi-German vocabularies.

Phonology

Consonants

The various Manenguba dialects differ slightly in their phonology. For example, in several, the original sound /f/ has become /h/, while in others it remains /f/. The Akoose and Mbo dialects may be taken as representative of the languages as a whole. They both have the following consonants:
// is written as "j" in Hedinger et al., but as "ch" in Hedinger .
The glottal stop /ʔ/ is written as " ' ". It is found only at the end of words.
/b/ is usually the implosive /ɓ/ except before /i u w/. The spelling "mb" is generally pronounced // with implosive //. However, in class 9 nouns "mb" is // with non-implosive /b/.
The prenasalised sounds /,, / also occur in class 9/10 words. The prenasalised sibilant // was originally a pre-palatal stop //. This stop is still preserved in Mbo, Mkaa' and Belon, but has become // in Akoose and most of the other Manenguba languages.
// is written as "y" and // is written as "ny". In some of the Manenguba dialects, // has become // ; for example, Akoose nyoŋ = Mwaneka yuŋ "hair".
At the beginning of a word, certain consonants can be combined with /w/, as in

/bʷ hʷ kʷ mʷ nʷ pʷ sʷ/

Some can be combined with // making the following palatalised consonants:

/tʃʲ dʲ hʲ lʲ mʲ nʲ pʲ sʲ tʲ/

It is also common for consonants to be preceded by a syllabic nasal at the beginning of a word, producing combinations such as

/m̩b m̩m n̩n n̩h ŋ̍k n̩l n̩s n̩t/

A preceding nasal can be combined with a following /w/ or /j/ as in:

/m̩bʷ m̩mʷ m̩pʷ ŋ̍kʷ ŋ̍gʷ n̩sʷ/
/ɲ̩tʃʲ n̩dʲ n̩lʲ n̩sʲ n̩tʲ n̩zʲ/

// and // cannot usually begin a word, except in the sound //.
Word internally combinations such as /gt lk ln ŋn ŋs/ are found.
Words can end in a vowel or in /b d g n m ŋ l w j ʔ/.

Vowels

In Akoose there are eight vowels :

/i e ɛ a ə ɔ o u/

All the vowels can be both long or short, although some dialects lack a distinction between some of the long vowels.
In Hedinger, the long vowels are written double: "ii ee ɛɛ aa əə ɔɔ oo uu".

Tones

The Manenguba languages are tonal. All the languages have a very similar tonal system. There are high tones, low tones, and contour tones. These are written á, a, ă, and â respectively, or in long vowels áá, aa, aá, and áa. Syllabic m and n can sometimes carry a tone, for example Akoose ḿmem "my", ńhal "speckled mouse-bird".
The tones display downdrift; that is, in a sequence H L H, the second H is slightly lower than the first. In some words there is also downstep in which in a sequence H H, the second H is slightly lower than the first, probably because historically an intervening L syllable was absorbed or dropped. A downstepped H is written ā in Hedinger. In a long vowel, H and downstepped H can make a contour tone, for example Akɔ́ɔ̄sē "Akoose language".
Tones distinguish one word from another; for example, in Akoose, -láán "three" has a high tone, -niin "four" has a low tone, and -táan "five" has a falling tone. Tones also have a grammatical function in verbs; for example, in Akoose, the word for "he has thrown" is apimé in a main clause, but ápímé, with a high tone, in some kinds of dependent clause.

Grammar

Noun classes

As in other Bantu languages, nouns in the Manenguba languages are divided into different classes. Typically nouns belong to classes 1 to 10, but there are also some nouns in classes 13, 14, and 19. Singular and plural classes are paired together to make "genders". Classes 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 13 are generally plurals of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 19 respectively, but other pairings are found. Some nouns have no singular-plural distinction and occur in only one class.
The class of a noun can often be judged from its prefix. The prefix may differ depending on whether the root starts with a consonant or a vowel; for example, in Akoose, class 5 starts with a- for a consonant stem, but d- for a vowel stem. Nouns with the suffix -ɛ in Akoose belong to classes 1/2, whatever the prefix.
The following examples of nouns come from Akoose:
Gender 1/2

nchîb, bechîb = thief, thieves
mod, bad = person, people

Gender 3/4

nchém, nchém = bat
ntyə́g, ntyə́g = box

Gender 5/6

abad, mebad = cloth
dúu, múu = nose

Gender 7/8

echem, e’chem = tongue
chyaá, byaá = leaf, leaves

Gender 7/6

ekuu, mekuu = leg
ehɔ́b, mehɔ́b = voice

Gender 9/10

káb, káb = antelope
nyǎd, nyǎd = forest buffalo

Gender 14/6

eʼmii, memii = finger
bwɛl, mɛl = tree

Gender 19/13

hyǒn, lǒn = firewood
hyɛn, lɛn = mushroom
Concords

As with other Bantu languages, adjectives, pronouns, numerals 1 to 5, demonstratives, verbs, and the associative marker "of" must all agree with the class of the noun they refer to, by the use of the appropriate prefixes. For example, the Akoose word băn "children" is in class 2, which uses the concord be or bé, making a sentence such as:

á-bé băn bé-bɛ bé-dyâg "those two children are eating "
Associative marker

The associative marker is a particle which joins together two nouns to make a noun phrase or compound noun. This particle agrees in class with the first of the two nouns. The following examples are from Akoose:

aláá á mbɔ́té "clothes iron"
meláá mé mbɔ́té "clothes irons"
ntyə́g ḿ mbɔ́té "clothes box"

In Mwaneka, on the other hand, the particle is omitted, but, except following a noun of class 1 or class 9, generally leaves a trace in the form of a high tone. This high tone sometimes affects the first of the two nouns, and sometimes the second:

ekwɛ́m múl "bottle of oil"
băl ojíw "thieves"