TheGeneral Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is anorthographic system created in the late 1970s for allCameroonian languages.[2][3] Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though⟨ẅ⟩ is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used sufficiently for the one unique letter, abilabial trill, to have been added to Unicode; in any case, that letter has now been replaced.
Maurice Tadadjeu andEtienne Sadembouo were central to this effort.
Uncommon consonants that do not make a phonemic contrast within a language with similar but more common consonants are not provided for. These include/ɸ/,/β/,/θ/,/ð/. However, the alphabet provides a stock of digraphs for unknown sounds that may be discovered among unwritten languages in the future.[1]
| Bilabial | labio- dental | inter- dental | dental/ alveolar | pre- palatal | palatal | velar | labio- velar | glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | kp | ʼ[ʔ] | ||||
| voiced | b | d | g | gb | ||||||
| Implosive/glottalized | ɓ | ɗ | ƴ[ʔʲ] | |||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | pf | tf | ts | c[tʃ] | kf | ||||
| voiced | bv | dv | dz | j[dʒ] | gv | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sh[ʃ] | hy | x | xf | h | ||
| voiced | v | z | zh[ʒ] | gh[ɣ] | hv | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ny[ɲ] | ŋ | ŋm | |||||
| Lateral | approximant | lv | l | |||||||
| voiceless fric. | sl[ɬ] | |||||||||
| voiced fric. | zl[ɮ] | |||||||||
| Vibrant | br[ʙ] | vb[ⱱ] | r | |||||||
| Glide | ẅ | y | w | |||||||
Aspirated consonants are writtenph, th, kh etc. Palatalized and labialized consonants arepy, ty, ky andpw, tw, kw etc. Retroflex consonants are written eitherCr or with a cedilla:tr, sr orţ, ş, etc. Prenasalized consonants aremb, nd, ŋg etc. Preglottalized consonants areʼb, ʼd, ʼm etc. Geminant consonants are written double.
Vowels that appear phonetically in Cameroonian languages, but do not make phonemic distinctions, are not provided for. These include[ɪ],[ʊ],[y].[1]
| Front unrounded | front rounded | central unrounded | back unrounded | back rounded | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | ʉ[ɯ] | u | |
| Mid-high | e | ø | o | ||
| Mid-low | ɛ | ə | ɔ | ||
| Low | a | α |
The descriptions of⟨ɨ⟩ and⟨ʉ⟩ are inconsistent, with⟨ɨ⟩ being either IPA[ɨ] or[ʉ]. The identifications above are how they are described with actual examples.[2]: 27 Additional IPA vowels are available if needed.[2]: 13
Long vowels are written double. Nasal vowels are written with a cedilla:a̧ etc., rather than with a tilde to leave room for tone marking, or with a single following nasal consonant:aŋ etc. (presumably assimilating to any following consonant), in which case [VN] would be written with a double nasal:aŋŋ etc. Harmonic vowels are written with a sub-dot, as ⟨bibị⟩ for[bib-y].[clarification needed]
Tone is written as in the IPA, with the addition of a vertical mark for mid-low tone: ⟨áāa̍à,âǎ⟩ etc. (the opposite of the value of the vertical mark elsewhere). Where rising and falling tones only occur on long vowels, they are decomposed: ⟨áà,àá⟩ etc. The high tone mark is used for contrastive stress in languages that do not have tone.