The languages of the Lower Fungom region of Cameroon: Grammatical overview

The Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon is one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the Cameroonian Grassfields. Seven languages, or small language clusters, are spoken in its thirteen recognized villages, four of which are restricted to a single village. While the languages are all recognizably Bantoid, five of them do not have any established close relatives outside of the region, nor can they be straightforwardly shown to be closely related to each other. Until recently, the languages of the area have not been subject to extensive investigation. However, since 2005, available information on them has increased significantly, and it is now possible to provide an overview of their grammatical structures. This paper offers sketches of segment inventories, pronominal and noun class systems, and verb stem alternations of six of the region’s seven languages, in addition to giving relevant background information and an updated map of the area. Received classifications of the region’s languages are assessed in light of the newly collected data, and a concrete proposal is made to reclassify the group of languages presently known as Western Beboid into a referential grouping which we term the Yemne-Kimbi group.