Baazəm language
Baazəm is a Yukubenic language closely related to Beezen, spoken in the village of Template:Interlanguage link in the Menchum Department in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. It was completely unknown until 2012 and is documented only in a document containing data collected over the span of a single day.
History
The Baazəm people are called Munka Template:Gloss in the Isu language. This name comes from a peace pact sworn between the Baazəm and Isu people, in which the Baazəm submitted themselves to the authority of the Isu. According to the Isu, this came after the Baazəm, who were fleeing from war, were given part of Isu territory to settle in, and were then made to swear on the pact. However, the Baazəm maintain that they were original inhabitants of their territory, and that the Isu invaded the village of Template:Interlanguage link, located to the north and west of Munka, in order to take control of Baazəm land. The Baazəm did not resist the Isu invasion, on account of their numerical advantage.[1]
Documentation
Until 2012, the Baazəm language was not even known to exist in the linguistic literature. That year, a document titled "Sparse notes on Baazəm" was released by Jesse Lovegren, containing data collected over a period of only one day. No systematic linguistic investigation of Baazəm has been carried out. Baazəm has also not been registered in major linguistic publications such as the Ethnologue.[1][2]
Classification
Baazəm is closely related to, though distinct from, Beezen.[1] It is further a member of the Yukubenic language family.[2]
Geographical distribution
Baazəm is surrounded completely by the Isu language.
Phonology
Vowels
Baazəm phonology has not been properly studied. The close-mid vowels Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink, which are not well attested, likely contrast with the open-mid vowels Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink. Vowels Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink are pronounced with some frication, a realization also found in some nearby languages. In closed, or consonant-final, syllables, it is unlikely that Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink are contrastive. It is also possible that there are further vowel contrasts which have not been recorded in the data.[1]
Consonants
It is uncertain whether or not the consonants Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink are distinctive in Baazəm. Obstruent consonants, Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, and Template:IPAblink, ordered by increasing frequency, occur in the coda position, and doubly articulated consonants Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink, which are extremely rare among the world's languages, can also be found in Baazəm. Heterorganic sequences of nasal-stop consonants are also attested, such as in i-nbì Template:Gloss, though this may be due to transcription errors as well.
Consonants found between vowels can be "softened"; for example, Template:IPAblink at the end of a word can become Template:IPAblink in certain instances:[1] Template:InterlinearTemplate:Interlinear
Tone
Tone in Baazəm has only been studied systematically for nouns. It is likely that there are three tone levels in Baazəm, low tone, mid tone, and high tone (designated as L, M, and H respectively), and not two or four levels. The most common tonal melody is mid-mid, incorporating nearly 70% of nouns surveyed.[1]
Morphology
Nouns
Noun class
All nouns attested in Baazəm come with a noun class prefix, in the form of V-, kV-, or bV-, where Template:Angle bracket represents a wildcard symbol for any vowel. The singular and plural prefixes documented for each class are listed in the table below:[1]
| Class | singular | plural |
|---|---|---|
| I | u- | i- |
| II | ɔ- | ɛ- |
| III | u- | bɔ- |
| IV | ɔ- | ba- |
| V | ka- | kɔ- |
| VI | ki- | ɛ- |
| VII | kɛ- | ɛ- |
| VIII | ku- | ɛ- |
| IX | kɛ- | a- |
| X | kɔ- | a- |
| XI | bi- | bu- |
| XII | bi- | i- |
| XIII | bɛ- | ɛ- |
It is possible that the number of noun classes is actually lower as certain prefixes may be related due to vowel harmony. Almost all noun class prefixes with a high vowel, either Template:IPA, or Template:IPA, occur with a noun stem that also contains the vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA; hardly any exceptions exist to this. However, prefixes which do not have high vowels are also found attached to stems with high vowels, which causes complications to the vowel harmony analysis. The noun stem for Template:Gloss exhibits vowel mutation with respect to its singular and plural forms, ɔ-logwə and ɛ-legwə, respectively. Such mutations are found more commonly in Beezen.[1]
Pronouns
The following pronominal forms have been elicited in Baazəm. The labels associated with each form may not be accurate and were assigned based on translation to English.[1]
| Subject | Possessor | Object | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Grammatical category label | mb- | āmbɛ̀ | mbɛ̀ |
| Template:Grammatical category label | mō | ōndū | mō |
| Template:Grammatical category label | mi | ɨ̄ndʒī | mī |
| Template:Grammatical category label | dʒī | ɛ̀dʒī | dʒī |
| Template:Grammatical category label | ɲī | ɲī | |
| Template:Grammatical category label | wù | ɛ̄β̞ā | wà |
Syntax
Word order
Basic word order in Baazəm for simple declarative clauses is SV for intransitive clauses and SVO for transitive clauses.[1]