Busuu is an unclassified
Southern Bantoid language of
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 ...
. R Breton noted in 1986 that there were just 8 speakers left,
[ while as of 2005 there were 3 speakers of the language.]endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...
.
Classification
In the Furu-Awa Subdivision in northern Cameroon bordering to Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, three missions of ALCAM (Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun) between 1984 and 1986 investigated three non-Jukunoid
The Jukunoid languages are a branch of the Benue-Congo languages spoken by the Jukun people (West Africa), Jukun and related peoples of Nigeria and Cameroon. They are distributed mostly throughout Taraba State, Nigeria and surrounding regions.
...
languages, among which Bikya and Bishuo are probably Beboid
The Beboid languages are any of several groups of languages spoken principally in southwest Cameroon, although two languages (Bukwen and Mashi) are spoken over the border in Nigeria. They are probably not most closely related to each other. The E ...
, but Busuu has been unable to be classified. All of these languages were spoken only by a few older inhabitants of the five villages Furu-Awa, (Furu-)Nangwa (Busuu-speaking), (Furu-)Turuwa, (Furu-)Sambari (Bishuo-speaking) and Furubana (Bikya-speaking). Lexical analysis has shown that while Bishuo has 24% lexical similarity with neighbouring Beboid languages, Nsaa and Nooni and Bikya have 16% resp. 17% similarity with them, and Busuu has just 8% resp. 7%.[Breton, Roland: ''Is there a Furu language group? An investigation on the Cameroon-Nigeria border'' in ''Journal of West African Languages'' Vol. 23, Number 2, http://www.journalofwestafricanlanguages.org/Volume23.aspx ]
See also
*Busuu
Busuu is a language learning platform on web, iOS and Android that allows users to interact with native speakers.
History
Busuu was founded in May 2008 by Bernhard Niesner and Adrian Hilti. The company launched with a free version of its websi ...
(an online network named after the Busuu language)
External links
Multimedia Site about Busuu with a song sung in this language
Notes
Furu languages
Endangered Niger–Congo languages
Endangered languages of Africa
{{Bantoid-lang-stub