A Pedagogic Grammar of Babanki

– a Grassfields Language of Northwest Cameroon

Author: Pius W. Akumbu, Evelyn Fogwe Chibaka. Series edited by: Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †, Bernd Heine.

Series: GA Grammatical Analyses of African Languages Volume 42

This book contains a description of the grammatical system of Babanki, a Centre Ring Grassfields Bantu language spoken in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. The Babanki language is spoken in two villages, namely Kejom Keku (Big Babanki) and Kejom Ketinguh (Babanki Tungo), located 20 km apart. The dialects spoken in these two villages have a few differences in sounds that do not perturb mutual intelligibility, however. Both villages have a heterogeneous population of about 25,000 people (Akumbu, 2008).

The first chapter introduces the work by providing relevant back­ground information on the language and study, followed by the presentation of the sound system in chapter 2. The third chapter focuses on the internal constituency of Babanki nouns by pre­senting the different noun classes and discussing the concord system triggered by the noun affixes. The following two chapters describe the pronoun system and noun phrases, simple as well as complex ones.

Chapter 6 presents the structure of the verb and then the different verb classes before moving on to discuss verbal reduplication which involves the verb stem. Furthermore the grammatical system of tense, aspect and mood followed by the description of question formation is presented. First affirmative/negative response questions and content questions are discussed before other question types are considered.

Chapter 9 focuses on the formation and use of ad­verbs closely linked to the formation and use of prepositions. Finally chapter 10 discusses three grammatical classes, namely, coordinators, complementizers, and the copula, and two phenom­ena – ideophones, and serial verb constructions to complete the study.

In addition to preserving the language and by extension the culture of the people, the main pur­pose of the description is to facilitate the learning of this essential tool of communication.

Under these links you will find descriptions of further Cameroonian Bantu and Grassfields Bantu languages, as well as a complementary Kejom (Babanki) – English Lexicon and publications by the authors:

Accompanying material:

• A Descriptive Grammar of Bafut (ISBN 978-3-89645-551-2)
• A Descriptive Grammar of Bangwà (ISBN 978-3-89645-563-5)
• A Descriptive Grammar of Basaa (A.43) (ISBN 978-3-89645-773-8)
• A Grammatical Description of Metta (Cameroon) in Relation to Focus Parametric Variation (ISBN 978-3-89645-544-4)
• Akum, Ala’atening and Mankon: Dialects or Languages? (ISBN 978-3-89645-562-8)
• Analyse contrastive des parlers Yémba du département de la Ménoua de l’Ouest-Cameroun (ISBN 978-3-89645-046-3)
• Bankon (A40) (ISBN 978-3-89645-030-2)
• Grammaire descriptive du pólrì (ISBN 978-3-89645-567-3)
• Kejom (Babanki) – English Lexicon (ISBN 978-3-89645-782-0)
• Linguistic Salvage – Isubu and Wovea (Bantu A231) (ISBN 978-3-89645-770-7)
• Mungaka (Bali) Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-927620-30-8)
• Structural and Typological Approaches to Obang Grammar (ISBN 978-3-89645-568-0)
• Traditions, Tales and Proverbs of the Bali-Nyonga (ISBN 978-3-927620-32-2)
• Verbal Serialisation in Isu (West Ring) (ISBN 978-3-89645-555-0)

Cross-reference:

• Bantu Languages (ISBN 978-3-89645-705-9)
• Cameroon Professional Women in Sciences (ISBN 978-3-89645-853-7)
• Domains and Regions in Bantu Tense and Aspect (ISBN 978-3-89645-772-1)
• Engagement with Africa (ISBN 978-3-89645-768-4)
• Research Mate in African Linguistics – Focus on Cameroon (ISBN 978-3-89645-041-8)
• Responding to Disease Outbreak in Cameroon (ISBN 978-3-89645-855-1)
• The Bantu Bibliography (ISBN 978-3-89645-181-1)

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