General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages

The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages.^[2]^[3] Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though ⟨ẅ⟩ is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used sufficiently for the one unique letter, a bilabial trill, to have been added to Unicode; in any case, that letter has now been replaced.

Maurice Tadadjeu and Etienne Sadembouo were central to this effort.

Consonants

Uncommon consonants that do not make a phonemic contrast within a language with similar but more common consonants are not provided for. These include /ɸ/, /β/, /θ/, /ð/. However, the alphabet provides a stock of digraphs for unknown sounds that may be discovered among unwritten languages in the future.^[1]

Cameroonian consonants^[2]^[1]
		Bilabial	labio- dental	inter- dental	dental/ alveolar	pre- palatal	palatal	velar	labio- velar	glottal
Stop	voiceless	p			t			k	kp	ʼ [ʔ]
Stop	voiced	b			d			g	gb
Implosive/glottalized		ɓ			ɗ		ƴ [ʔʲ]
Affricate	voiceless		pf	tf	ts	c [tʃ]			kf
Affricate	voiced		bv	dv	dz	j [dʒ]			gv
Fricative	voiceless		f		s	sh [ʃ]	hy	x	xf	h
Fricative	voiced		v		z	zh [ʒ]		gh [ɣ]	hv
Nasal		m			n		ny [ɲ]	ŋ	ŋm
Lateral	approximant		lv		l
	voiceless fric.				sl [ɬ]
	voiced fric.				zl [ɮ]
Vibrant		br [ʙ]	vb [ⱱ]		r
Glide		ẅ					y		w

Aspirated consonants are written ph, th, kh etc. Palatalized and labialized consonants are py, ty, ky and pw, tw, kw etc. Retroflex consonants are written either Cr or with a cedilla: tr, sr or ţ, ş, etc. Prenasalized consonants are mb, nd, ŋg etc. Preglottalized consonants are ʼb, ʼd, ʼm etc. Geminant consonants are written double.

Vowels

Vowels that appear phonetically in Cameroonian languages, but do not make phonemic distinctions, are not provided for. These include [ɪ], [ʊ], [y].^[1]

Cameroonian vowels^[2]
	Front unrounded	front rounded	central unrounded	back unrounded	back rounded
High	i		ɨ	ʉ [ɯ]	u
Mid-high	e	ø			o
Mid-low	ɛ		ə		ɔ
Low			a	α

The descriptions of ⟨ɨ⟩ and ⟨ʉ⟩ are inconsistent, with ⟨ɨ⟩ being either IPA [ɨ] or [ʉ]. The identifications above are how they are described with actual examples.^[2]^: 27 Additional IPA vowels are available if needed.^[2]^: 13

Long vowels are written double. Nasal vowels are written with a cedilla: a̧ etc., rather than with a tilde to leave room for tone marking, or with a single following nasal consonant: aŋ etc. (presumably assimilating to any following consonant), in which case [VN] would be written with a double nasal: aŋŋ etc. Harmonic vowels are written with a sub-dot, as ⟨bibị⟩ for [bib-y].^{[clarification needed]}

Tones

Tone is written as in the IPA, with the addition of a vertical mark for mid-low tone: ⟨á ā a̍ à, â ǎ⟩ etc. (the opposite of the value of the vertical mark elsewhere). Where rising and falling tones only occur on long vowels, they are decomposed: ⟨áà, àá⟩ etc. The high tone mark is used for contrastive stress in languages that do not have tone.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Etienne Sadembouo. 2023. Alphabet Générale des Langues Camerounaises : 1979-2019, quel accueil et quelle perspective après 40 ans d’adoption ?
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Tadadjeu, Maurice and Etienne Sadembouo. 1979. Alphabet Générale des Langues Camerounaises. Departement des Langues Africaines et Linguistique, Université de Yaoundé, Cameroun.
^ Bird, Stephen. 2001. "Orthography and Identity in Cameroon."

External links

[Sadembouo-1] Etienne Sadembouo. 2023. Alphabet Générale des Langues Camerounaises : 1979-2019, quel accueil et quelle perspective après 40 ans d’adoption ?

[Tadadjeu-2] Tadadjeu, Maurice and Etienne Sadembouo. 1979. Alphabet Générale des Langues Camerounaises. Departement des Langues Africaines et Linguistique, Université de Yaoundé, Cameroun.

[3] Bird, Stephen. 2001. "Orthography and Identity in Cameroon."

[2]

[3]

[1]