Kom
Itaŋikom
Native toCameroon
RegionNorth-West Province
Native speakers
210,000 (2005)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3bkm
Glottologkomc1235

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]

Phonology

Consonants

Kom consonants[3]
  Bilabial Labio-
dental		 Alveolar Palatal Labial-
velar		 Velar
Plosive  b    td cɟ    kɡ
Fricative    fv sz        ɣ
Nasal  m     n  ɲ     ŋ
Approximant           j  w   
Lateral approximant        l         

Vowels

Kom vowels[3]
  Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Close-mid e   o
Open a    

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.

Kom alphabet[5]
Letters aaebchdefgghiɨj’klmnŋnyooestuuevwyz
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

  1. ↑ Kom at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 3 Shultz, George (1997). Kom Language Grammar Sketch Part 1 (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique (SIL).
  3. 1 2 3 Shultz, George (June 1993). Notes on the Phonology of the Kom Language (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique.
  4. ↑ Kawuldim, Kimbi Paul (2008). Relativization in Kom (PDF). Nairobi: Nairoby Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. p. 17.
  5. 1 2 Chia, Emmanuel N.; Kimbi, Joseph C. (1992). Guide to the Kom Alphabet: Kom Language Reading and Writing Book (PDF). Yaoundé: Société Internationale de Linguistique.

Bibliography


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