An Ultrasound Analysis of Tswefap Back Consonants

Tswefap is a grassfields Bantu (Bamileke) language spoken in Batoufam, Cameroon. This paper is part of a series of descriptive and theoretical analyses of Tswefap undertaken for a fieldwork methodology seminar. The focus for this paper is to identify the place of articulation of back consonants in Tswefap using ultrasound imaging and SSANOVA. Data for this analysis were collected in an urban setting from one adult male native speaker of Tswefap, a Berkeley undergraduate named Guy Tchatchouang (born 1975). Mr. Tchatchouang grew up in Douala, where he spoke Tswefap and French. Extensive language contact in Douala has resulted in lots of loanwords from French used in Tswefap, as well as frequent code-switching in the speech of Tswefap speakers from that region.