Basaa Alphabet

Basaa, which its speakers write Ɓàsàa, uses 28 letters in this order: A B Ɓ C D E Ɛ F G H I J K L M N Ŋ O Ɔ P R S T U V W Y Z. Q and X are not part of it. The order is the one Unicode's CLDR records for the language, and it follows the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages, a unifying alphabet established in 1979 for Cameroonian languages.

Four letters need special characters. Ɓ ɓ (b with a hook) is an implosive b, said while drawing air inwards; it is the first letter of the language's own name. Ɛ ɛ is an open e, close to the vowel of English bed, and Ɔ ɔ an open o, close to the vowel of law, so e and ɛ, o and ɔ are different vowels, not spelling variants. Ŋ ŋ is the ng of English sing, and in Basaa it can begin a word: every weekday name in CLDR's Basaa calendar starts with ŋgwà, as in ŋgwà ŋgê (Wednesday) and ŋgwà nɔ̂y (Sunday).

A long vowel is written twice, as in kɔɔ in ŋgwà kɔɔ (Friday) and in Ɓàsàa itself. The rest of the alphabet reads much as in French or English: c, j, h, s and z are ordinary consonants, and words such as Kàmɛ̀rûn (Cameroon) and Frǎŋ (franc) show how borrowed names are fitted to Basaa sounds.

Basaa tone marks: what á, à, â, ǎ and ā mean

Basaa is a tonal Bantu language: the pitch of a syllable is part of the word, and the AGLC spelling marks tone with accents. The acute marks a high tone (á), the grave a low tone (à), the circumflex a falling tone (â, high to low) and the caron a rising tone (ǎ, low to high). The macron (ā) is the General Alphabet's mark for a mid level, and it also turns up in CLDR's Basaa data, as in Afrīkà (Africa) and pɔtɔ̄kì (Portuguese).

The marks go on every vowel, a e ɛ i o ɔ u, and on the nasals n and m when they form a syllable of their own, as in ńyonos and the month name M̀puyɛ (May). In CLDR's Basaa data Cameroon is Kàmɛ̀rûn, Gabon is Gàbɔ̂ŋ, December is Lìbuy li ńyèe, and "in the morning" is I bikɛ̂glà. Short forms often leave the marks out: the abbreviated weekdays are written nja, uum, ŋge, mbɔ, kɔɔ, jon, nɔy.

Unicode has ready-made letters for the tone-marked a, e, i, o, u and for ń and ǹ, which is why they sit in the grid in their own columns. Unicode has no precomposed tone-marked ɛ, ɔ or ŋ; for m, only acute ḿ/Ḿ is precomposed. For the other forms, type the base letter and then a combining mark: ɛ followed by the combining grave ̀ gives ɛ̀, ɔ followed by the combining circumflex ̂ gives ɔ̂, and M followed by ̀ gives M̀. The five combining marks are in the grid under Tone marks; paste them straight after the letter, never before it.

How to type ɛ, ɔ, ɓ and ŋ on a keyboard, iPhone or Android

The quickest way is to copy them from this page. In Microsoft Word on Windows, type the code and press Alt+X: 025B for ɛ, 0190 for Ɛ, 0254 for ɔ, 0186 for Ɔ, 0253 for ɓ, 0181 for Ɓ, 014B for ŋ and 014A for Ŋ. The combining tone marks work the same way after the letter: 0301 acute, 0300 grave, 0302 circumflex, 030C caron, 0304 macron. On a Mac, add the Unicode Hex Input source in Keyboard settings, hold Option and type the same codes.

For regular writing, install a keyboard made for Cameroonian languages: SIL's free Keyman keyboards for Cameroon come in AZERTY and QWERTY layouts for Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone and put ɓ ɛ ɔ ŋ and the tone marks on keys. Without one, set up text replacements on the phone once (iPhone: Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement; Android: your keyboard's personal dictionary) with ɛ, ɔ, ɓ and ŋ as phrases and short triggers such as ee, oo, bb, ng. In HTML, write ɛ for ɛ, ɔ for ɔ, ɓ for ɓ and ŋ (or ŋ) for ŋ.

Watch the look-alikes: ɛ is not Greek ε (epsilon), ɔ is not the reversed letter ↄ, ŋ is not Greek η, and Ɓ is not plain B. They can look the same in some fonts but break spelling checks, search and sorting.

Where the Basaa language is spoken in Cameroon

Basaa is the language of the Basaa (Bassa) people of southern Cameroon, in the Centre and Littoral regions between Douala and Yaoundé, around towns such as Édéa on the Sanaga river and Éséka, and in communities in Douala and Yaoundé themselves. Unicode's CLDR estimates about 370,000 speakers. It is a Bantu language, classed A43 in Guthrie's system, related to the other Bantu languages of the region such as Ewondo.

Basaa country lies in the mostly French-speaking Centre and Littoral regions of Cameroon, where French and English are the two official languages, so prices are written the Cameroonian way, 5 000 FCFA, and French guillemets « » are as familiar as curly quotes “ ”. The Cameroon collection has the country's flag 🇨🇲 and emoji, and the Ewondo, Yemba, Ngiemboon and Fula collections cover other languages of Cameroon.

Do not confuse it with two other languages spelled the same way in English: Bassa of Liberia, a Kru language with its own script, Bassa Vah, and Basa of central Nigeria. Neither is related to the Basaa of Cameroon.