Bikya (also known as Furu) is a potentially extinct

Southern Bantoid Southern Bantoid (or South Bantoid) is a branch of the Bantoid language family. It consists of the Bantu languages along with several small branches and isolates of eastern Nigeria and west-central Cameroon (though the affiliation of some branc ...

language spoken in

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

. It is one of the three, or four,

Furu languages The Furu languages are a proposed group of poorly attested extinct or nearly extinct and otherwise unclassified Southern Bantoid languages of Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (fren ...

. In 1986 four surviving speakers were identified, although only one (a man in his seventies) spoke the language fluently. English linguist Dr. David Dalby filmed an 87-year-old

African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

woman who spoke Bikya as her native tongue. At the time, it was believed that she was the last Bikya speaker. It, and presumably all of Furu, is perhaps a Beboid language (Blench 2011).

Bibliography

*Breton, Roland (1995) 'Les Furu et leur voisins', ''Cahier Sciences Humaines'', 31, 1, 17–48. *Breton, Roland (1993) "Is there a Furu Language Group? An investigation on the Cameroon-Nigeria Border", ''The Journal of West African Languages'', 23, 2, 97–98. * Blench, Roger (2011
'The membership and internal structure of Bantoid and the border with Bantu'
''Bantu IV'', Humboldt University, Berlin.

References

Furu languages Languages of Cameroon Endangered languages of Africa {{Bantoid-lang-stub