Naki language

Not to be confused with Naki language (Papuan).

Naki
Munkaf
Region	Cameroon, Nigeria
Native speakers	(2,000 cited 1993)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Eastern Beboid Naki
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: mff – Naki (Cameroon) jms – Mashi
Glottolog	naki1240
ELP	Naki

Naki, or Munkaf, is an Eastern Beboid language of Cameroon and Nigeria. There is no name for the language; it is known by the villages it is spoken in, including Naki and Mekaf (Munkaf) in Cameroon and Mashi in Nigeria, the latter listed as a separate language by Ethnologue, though it is not distinct.

Phonology

Naki is a tonal language. It has a high tone /á/, a low tone /à/, a rising tone /ǎ/, and a falling tone /â/.

Naki has eight phonemic vowels. These are as follows:

Vowel Phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	a

The consonants are as follows.

Consonants

		Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	voiceless	p	t tʷ	c cʷ	k kʷ
	voiced	b bʷ bʲ	d		g gʷ
Affricate	voiceless	f fʷ fʲ	t͡s t͡sʷ t͡sʲ
	voiced		d͡z	d͡ʒ d͡ʒʷ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ ʃʷ ʃʲ
	voiced			ʒ
Nasal		m mʷ	n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant		w	l	j jʷ

There are also the labio-velar plosives k͡p and g͡b.

Sources

• Blench, Roger, 2011. 'The membership and internal structure of Bantoid and the border with Bantu'. Bantu IV, Humboldt University, Berlin.