Bube, Bohobé or Bube–Benga (Bobe, Bubi), is a
Bantu language spoken by the
Bubi
BuBi (officially: MOL BuBi) is a bicycle sharing network in Budapest, Hungary. Its name is a playful contraction Budapest and Bicikli (bicycle in Hungarian), meaning "bubble" in an endearing manner. As of May 2019 the network consists of 143 dock ...
, a
Bantu people
The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern ...
native to, and once the primary inhabitants of,
Bioko Island
Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...
in
Equatorial Guinea. The language was brought to Bioko from continental Africa more than three thousand years ago when the
Bubi
BuBi (officially: MOL BuBi) is a bicycle sharing network in Budapest, Hungary. Its name is a playful contraction Budapest and Bicikli (bicycle in Hungarian), meaning "bubble" in an endearing manner. As of May 2019 the network consists of 143 dock ...
began arriving on the island.
It has around 50,000 speakers, with three variants: North, South and Central-East. It is noted for its
tonal character and the divergence of words by gender. The language is also spoken by Bubi native to
Gabon
Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the nort ...
and
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 ...
.
The Bube language is divided into six different dialects that vary in the northern and southern regions of Bioko Island. For example, in the North, people speak ''Rebola'' and its variations: ''Basile'', ''Banapa'' and ''Basupa''. However, in the North-East, ''Bakake'' is spoken.
Bube is also spoken in a small area on the mainland closest to the island, where speakers are shifting to
Wumboko. This has been reported as "Bube", "Bubia" or "Wovea" (see
Wovea people).
The first works on the Bube language were those of the Baptist missionary
John Clarke, published in 1846 and 1848. A later Bube-to-English
primer was authored in 1875 by
William Barleycorn, a colonial era
Primitive Methodist missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
of
Igbo
Igbo may refer to:
* Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria
* Igbo language, their language
* anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria
See also
* Ibo (disambiguation)
* Igbo mythology
* Igbo music
* Igbo art
*
* Igbo-Ukwu, a ...
and
Fernandino descent, while he was serving in the Bubi village of
Basupu. An official language dictionary and grammar guide was published by the ethnic Bubi scholar
Justo Bolekia Boleká.
Other names
Other names and forms of the name include Bubé, eVoové, eBubée, Bhubhi, Bubi, Ibubi, Ibhubhi, Pove and Eviia.
Phonology
Vowels
Bube has 7 vowels that can be either short or long:
The
nasal vowels are
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s of respective oral vowels.
Consonants
Bube has 29 consonants. Some of them are
prenasalized
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...
:
Numbers
The numbers one through ten in Bube are as follows:
[C. Junyent, ''Las lenguas del mundo'', p. 66]
:
References
Bibliography
* Biddulph, Joseph, Fernandian (1988). ''The Bubi Bantu language of Bioco/Fernando Po''. Pontypridd, Wales: Languages Information Centre, WorldCat no. 17838738.
*Bolekia, Justo Bolekia (1991). Curso de lengua bubi. (Coleccion ensayos, 8.) Malabo: Centro Cultural Hispano-Guineano.
*Bolekia, Justo (2009). Diccionario español-bubi. Madrid: Ediciones AKAL. 544pp.
* Clarke, John (1846)
''Sentences in the Fernandian Tongue'' Dunfermline Press, Bimbia.
* Clarke, John (1848)
''Introduction To The Fernandian Tongue'', Part 1.Berwick-on-Tweed.
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bube language
Mbam languages
Languages of Equatorial Guinea
Languages of Gabon
Languages of Cameroon