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Kemezung language

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Bantoid language spoken in Cameroon

Kemezung
Native to	Cameroon
Region	Northwest Province,Donga-Mantung Division, Southwest corner of Ako Subdivision, Northwest ofNkambé, town of Dumbu and village of Kwei.
Native speakers	3,540 (2008)^[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Eastern Beboid Kemezung
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`dmo`
Glottolog	`keme1240`

Kemezung (Dumbo, Dumbu, Dzumbo, Kumaju) is aSouthern Bantoid (Eastern Beboid) language ofCameroon. According toEthnologue, it's 85% lexically similar toBebe.^[1]

Consonants

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Kemezung has 19 "unmodified" consonants.^[2] Cox also claims Kemezung has labialized, palatalized, and prenasalized consonants but does not list all of them.^[3]

		Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Labial–velar	Glottalic
Plosive	voiceless		t		k	k͡p
Plosive	voiced	b	d		g	g͡b
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s^[a]
Affricate	voiced		d͡z^[b]
Fricative		f	s^[c]				h
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant			l^[d]	j^[e]		w

^/t͡s/ becomes[t͡ʃ] before /i/.
^/d͡z/ becomes[d͡ʒ] before /i/.
^/s/ becomes[ʃ] before/i/. It becomes[s̬] or[ɾ] between vowels root-medially.
^/l/ optionally becomes[d] in many words before/i/ root-medially.
^/j/ optionally becomes[ʒ] before/i/ root-medially.

Vowels

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Kemezung has 9 phonemic vowels.^[4]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	ɘ^[a]	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɜ^[b]	ɔ
Open		ä

^Cox uses⟨ɨ⟩, which normally represents the close central unrounded vowel/ɨ/.
^Cox uses⟨ə⟩, which normally represents the mid central unrounded vowel/ə/.

Tone

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Kemezung also has 7 (or possibly 8) tones.^[5] There are three level tones (high, mid, and low), three falling tones (high-low, mid-low, and long mid-low), and one or two rising tones (low-mid and possibly mid-high).