Bankon (Abo, Abaw, Bo, Bon) is a

Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

spoken in the Moungo department of the Littoral Province of southwestern

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 has a

lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...

of 86% with Rombi which is spoken in the nearby

Meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

department of

Southwest Province The Southwest Region or South-West Region () is a region in Cameroon. Its capital is Buea. , its population was 1,553,320. Along with the Northwest Region, it is one of the two Anglophone (English-speaking) regions of Cameroon. Various Ambazonia ...

. ''Bankon'' is the endonym. ''Abo'' is an administrative name.

Varieties

With 1,300 speakers, Lombe and Bankon are two dialects of the same language. There is over 83% mutual intelligibility. The Barombi claim to come from the land of the Abo, and the Abo claim to be descended from the Barombi. According to local ethnic legends, coming from the Congo, Nkon, the son of Lombi, settled in the present Bankon or Abo area, while his father Lombi continued further north to found the present Barombi settlements. The northern subgroup of the Abo is arrived more recently and is of Duala origin; this explains why the Abo are considered to be brothers of the Duala, or even confused with them, even though their language is closer to the

Basaa Basaa (also spelled ''Bassa, Basa, Bissa''), or Mbene, is a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon by the Basaa people. It is spoken by about 300,000 people in the Centre and Littoral regions. Maho (2009) lists North and South Kogo as dialects. B ...

group. The Abo (like all Barombi) also speak Duala. Lombe, a dialect of the Barombi people, is spoken in the Southwestern Region in three distinct areas: two are located in the department of Mémé. The first is located north of

Mount Cameroon Mount Cameroon is an active volcano in the South West region of Cameroon next to the city of Buea near the Gulf of Guinea. Mount Cameroon is also known as Cameroon Mountain or Fako (the name of the higher of its two peaks) or by its indigenous n ...

around Lake Barombi-Koto, and the second is located west of

Kumba Kumba is a metropolitan city in the Meme department, Southwest Region, Western Cameroon, referred as "K-town" in local slang. Kumba is the most developed and largest city in the Meme Department and has attracted people from the local villag ...

around

Lake Barombi Mbo Lake Barombi Mbo or Barombi-ma-Mbu is a lake near Kumba in the Southwest Region of Cameroon. It is located in the Cameroon volcanic chain, and is the largest volcanic lake in this region. It is one of the oldest radiocarbon-dated lakes in Afri ...

(both of which are in

commune). The third, further west, is located in

Ndian Ndian is a department of Southwest Region in Cameroon. It is located in the humid tropical rainforest zone about southeast of Yaoundé, the capital. History Ndian division was formed in 1975 from parts of Kumba and Victoria divisions and is ...

department,

Ekondo-Titi Ekondo-Titi is a commune and arrondissement in the Ndian department, Southwest Province, western Cameroon. Ekondo Titi is a suburban town and capital of the Ekondo Titi Sub Division. It is located in Ndian Division of the South West region of the ...

commune, northeast of Ekondo-Titi city. All three areas are enclosed within the Eastern Oroko-speaking area. In ethnic/folk genealogy, Lombi is ancestral to Nkon, who is ancestral to Bo, according to the genealogies collected by Dika-Akwa. Bankon is spoken north of the Wouri estuary in the entire northern part of

Dibombari Dibombari is a town and commune in Cameroon. See also *Communes of Cameroon The Arrondissements of Cameroon are the third-level units of administration in Cameroon. The arrondissements are organised by divisions and sub divisions of each provin ...

commune (in Mungo department, Littoral Region) between the Mbo language area to the north and west, and the

Duala language Duala (''ɓwambo ba duālā in douala)'' (also spelt Douala, Diwala, Dwela, Dualla and Dwala) is a dialect cluster spoken by the Duala and Mungo peoples of Cameroon. Douala belongs to the Bantu language family, in a subgroup called Sawabantu. ...

area to the south and east.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bankon Language Languages of Cameroon Basaa languages