The Furu languages are a proposed group of poorly attested extinct or nearly extinct and otherwise unclassified
Southern Bantoid languages
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 ...
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 ...
. Suggested Furu languages are:
:
Bikya (Furu),
Bishuo,
Busuu, ?Lubu
Word lists for the first three languages were compiled by Michel Dieu, but after his death they were apparently lost. His lexicostatistical calculations were published in Breton (1993, 1995).
Roland Kiessling revisited the remote area in 2007, and was able to show that they are normal Bantoid languages; they may perhaps be
Beboid (Blench 2011). Lubu is unattested, only recalled as the language of the grandparents of the village elders.
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.
Bantoid languages
{{Bantoid-lang-stub