A Descriptive Grammar of Basaa (A.43)

This book deals with the Basaa language, a well-known Bantu language spoken in Cameroon (according to Guthrie A43) with about 300.000 speakers. The aim of this book is to contribute to a better knowledge of the under-documented Bantu area, but also, it is hoped to display some interesting characteristics of the Basaa language that could be used in typological and comparative studies. In his descriptive work, the author focuses on the Mbènè, a variety spoken in the Nyong and Kelle Division and in part of the Sanaga-Maritime Division.

The edition of this grammar is very timely, when presently there are experimentations going about on inserting local languages in Cameroonian school systems, as discipline and as teaching mediums. Basaa in this respect was first included in the Programme de Recherche Opérationnelle pour l’Enseignement des Langues au Cameroun (PROPELCA) and presently in Ecoles et Langues Nationales en Afrique (ELAN-Afrique).

This work benefits from concepts and notions attributed to functionalist-typological approach, with the desire to gain results accessible to both formally and functionally-oriented linguists. In certain chapters especially where phonology and prosody are treated, the analysis conducted is couched on the autosegmental phonology framework

The book ambitions to tackle many questions on scarcely documented domains in Bantu languages like prosody and its relation to morphology and syntax. Several examples are provided so that the reader can get a full picture of the language. The perspective exposed here will be useful to linguistic researchers and students, to language teachers and to the outside public who shows a lot of interest about the development of Basaa culture and language.


Further descriptions of Cameroonian Bantu and Grassfields Bantu languages have been published in our programme, either by monographs or paper collections, see the following links:

„A Descriptive Grammar of Bangwà – a Grassfields Bantu Language of Cameroon“, ISBN 978-3-89645-563-5.
Structural and Typological Approaches to Obang Grammar – a Grassfields Bantu Language of Cameroon“, ISBN 978-3-89645-568-0.
„Bantu Languages – Analyses, Description and Theory“, ISBN 978-3-89645-705-9.