Awing language explained

Awing
Also Known As:Mbwe'wi
State:Cameroon
Speakers:19,000
Date:2001
Ref:e18
Familycolor:Niger-Congo
Fam2:Atlantic–Congo
Fam3:Volta-Congo
Fam4:Benue–Congo
Fam5:Bantoid
Fam6:Southern Bantoid
Fam7:Grassfields
Fam8:Eastern Grassfields
Fam9:Mbam-Nkam
Fam10:Ngemba
Iso3:azo
Glotto:awin1248
Glottorefname:Awing

Awing, or Mbwe'wi, is a Grassfields language spoken in Cameroon.

Alphabet

The Awing alphabet was proposed by translation consultants for SIL International and the Cameroon Association For Bible Translation and Literacy (CABTAL) in 2005. It was since then used for publishing Bible translations, Awing folk stories, and other materials.

The Awing alphabet is based on an adapted Latin script. It is made up of 9 vowel letters and 22 consonant letters. The letters H, Q, R, V, and X are dropped, and several special characters and digraphs, as well as the apostrophe are added to transcribe Awing phonetic sounds. The consonant phone [l] varies freely with [ɾ] between vowels inside a root. Thus, the R-sound is denoted by the letter L.

UppercaseABChDEƐƏFGGhIƗJKʼLMNNyŊOƆPSShTTsUWYZ
Lowercaseabchdeɛəfgghiɨjkʼlmnnyŋoɔpsshttsuwyz
IPA[a][b][tʃ][d][e][ɛ][ə][f][ɡ][ɣ][i][ɨ][ʒ], [dʒ][k][ʔ][l], [ɾ][m][n][ɲ][ŋ][o][ɔ][p][s][ʃ][t], [tʰ][ts][u][w], [ɥ][j][z], [dz]
Long vowels are indicated by repeating the vowel letter.

⟨n⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨ŋ⟩, and ⟨ny⟩ may be syllabic nasals ([n̩], [m̩], [ŋ̩], [ɲ̩]).

Tones are indicated using diacritics on the first vowel or nasal of the syllable. Both high and mid tone are marked with the acute accent, and the low tone is not explicitly written:

ToneIPAGrapheme
Higháá
Midā
Lowàa
Risingǎǎ
Fallingââ
Diaeresis on the vowel before the verb marks the habitual aspect.

External links