Kung language (Cameroon) explained

Kung language (Cameroon) should not be confused with ǃKung languages.

Kung
States:	Cameroon
Speakers:	The Nzonko dialect was spoken during the 2000s, but now probably extinct.The Nkam dialect is originated from the frontier with Nigeria, today spoken a undated number of 12.The Zoro dialect was discovered in 2003, now at least 1 person remember words of this dialect.
Date:	2019
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Niger-Congo
Fam2:	Atlantic–Congo languages
Fam3:	Benue–Congo languages
Fam4:	Southern Bantoid languages
Fam5:	Grassfields
Fam6:	Ring
Fam7:	Center
Iso3:	kfl
Glotto:	kung1260
Glottorefname:	Kung

Kung is a Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon.

Consonants

Tatang enumerates 24 plain consonants, 9 prenasalized consonants, 7 labialized consonants, and 6 palatalized consonants, for a total of 46.^[1]

	Labial	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labial-velar	Glottal
Stop	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Affricate	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/
Fricative	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Nasal	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Trill	pronounced as /link/
Approximant		pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/

Vowels

Tatang counts 10 vowel phonemes.^[1]

	Front	Central		Back
Close	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Close-mid	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
Open-mid	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
Open		pronounced as /link/

Tones

In addition, Kung contrasts six tones--three level tones (high, mid, low) and three contour tones (rising, high-mid, and falling). Tatang argues that the contour tones are combinations of register tones.^[1]

Further reading

• Book: Di Carlo . Pierpaolo . Good . Jeff . What Are We Trying to Preserve? Diversity, Change, and Ideology at the Edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields . Peter K. . Austin . Julia . Sallabank . Endangered Languages: Beliefs and Ideologies in Language Documentation and Revitalization . 2014 . 9780197265765 . 10.5871/bacad/9780197265765.003.0012.
• Book: Good, Jeff . 2013 . A (micro-)accretion zone in a remnant zone?: Lower Fungom in areal-historical perspective . Balthasar . Bickel . Lenore A. . Grenoble . David A. . Peterson . Alan . Timberlake . Language Typology and Historical Contingency: In honor of Johanna Nichols . 265–282 . Amsterdam . John Benjamins . Typological Studies in Language . 104.
• Book: Kießling, Roland . 2019 . Salient features of the Kung noun class system in a Ring perspective . Pius W. . Akumbu . Esther P. . Chie . Engagement with Africa: Linguistic Essays in Honor of Ngessimo M. Mutaka . 139–161 . Cologne . Rüdiger Köppe Verlag . 978-3-89645-768-4.
• Lo . Ch'ang-p'ei . Luo Changpei . 1945 . A Preliminary Study on the Trung Language of Kung Shan . Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies . 8 . 3/4 . 343–348 . 10.2307/2717821 . 2717821.
• Schlenker . Rebecca . 2012 . Das Nominalklassensystem des Kung (Graslandbantu) . MA . Universität Hamburg.

Notes and References

1. Joyce Yasho . Tatang . Aspects of Kung Grammar . https://web.archive.org/web/20220602085214/https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcgood/Tatang-2016-Kung.pdf . 2022-06-02 . 2023-12-12 . University of Buea . MA . November 2016.