Mfumte (Nfumte) is a

Grassfields Bantu language The Grassfields languages (or Wide Grassfields languages) are a branch of the Southern Bantoid languages spoken in the Western High Plateau of Cameroon and some parts of Taraba state, Nigeria. Better known Grassfields languages include the Easter ...

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 not clear if the four varieties spoken by ethnic Mfumte—Ndaktup, Kwaja, Fum and Mfumte proper—are

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

or distinct languages; ability to communicate may be either due to inherent intelligibility or to

bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

, while ''Fum'' and ''Mfumte'' may simply be the

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 ...

n and Cameroonian names for the same language.

Orthography

The mfumte alphabet has 40 letters, with 30 consonants and 10 vowels.

References

External links

A Sketch Grammar of the Central Mfumte Language
An introduction to the Mfumte language and a description of its grammar rules
Conflict Resolution Systems in Wulí’ Culture
A description of language conflict including the Mfumte language Languages of Cameroon Nkambe languages {{gras-lang-stub