Kom Alphabet

Kom is written in the Latin alphabet, following the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages, the shared spelling system that lets one set of letters serve hundreds of Cameroonian languages. Rather than using the full English A–Z, its standard alphabet has 20 single Latin letters, six digraphs (ae, ch, gh, ny, oe and ue) and three additional characters: Ɨ ɨ (barred i), Ŋ ŋ (eng) and ʼ (apostrophe). The ae and oe digraphs may also be written as the ligatures Æ æ and Œ œ; Ə ə is not a Kom letter.

In Kom, ɨ represents /ɨ/, æ (also written ae) represents /æ/, and ŋ represents the ng sound in English sing. The letter ə does not belong to Kom's standard alphabet.

Some sounds are written with two letters rather than a special one, for example ny, the sound of Spanish ñ, and gh, a soft g made at the back of the mouth. You type them as two ordinary letters, so the grid here lists only single letters.

Tone marks in Kom

Kom is a tonal language. In the Kom orthography, the grave accent marks low tone and the circumflex marks falling tone; high tone is unmarked. Acute and caron accents are not used for Kom's tone contrasts.

To mark low or falling tone on a vowel without a precomposed accented form, type the vowel and then the combining grave or circumflex, as in ɨ̀ and ɨ̂. High tone is unmarked, and ə is not a Kom letter. The grave and circumflex are in the grid; copy one and paste it after the vowel it belongs to.

How to type ɨ and ŋ on a keyboard and phone

The simplest way on any device is to copy the letters from this page. For regular writing, the free Keyman app from SIL offers a Cameroon QWERTY keyboard for Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone/iPad. It supports languages that use the General Alphabet of Cameroonian Languages, including Kom.

On Windows, in Microsoft Word type the code and press Alt+X: 0268 gives ɨ and 0197 Ɨ, 014B gives ŋ and 014A Ŋ. Kom uses a combining 0300 grave for low tone and 0302 circumflex for falling tone, typed after a vowel; high tone is unmarked. On a Mac, press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer and search for barred i or eng.

In HTML, write ɨ for ɨ, Ɨ for Ɨ, and ŋ or Ŋ for ŋ and Ŋ. Watch the look-alikes: ɨ is not i with a strikethrough added by your editor.

Where the Kom language is spoken

Kom is spoken in the hills of Boyo Division in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, around Fundong, Njinikom and Belo, with the Fon's palace at Laikom; CLDR estimates about 400,000 speakers, and Kom communities also live in Bamenda, Yaoundé, Douala and abroad. It belongs to the Ring group of the Grassfields Bantu languages, alongside neighbours such as Oku, Babanki and Aghem.

Kom speakers usually also use English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, the everyday languages of the Northwest; French is Cameroon's other official language. Money is the Central African CFA franc, written FCFA or XAF after the amount (2 000 FCFA); it has no symbol of its own. For the letters of Cameroon's other written languages see the Ghomala, Yemba, Ngiemboon, Medumba, Bamun, Basaa, Ewondo and Bulu collections, and for the flag and the country's emoji see Cameroon.

Searching for the Kom language? There is also an unrelated Kom language in Manipur, India, a Kuki-Chin language written differently; this page is about Kom of Cameroon.

The Fon, the Afo-A-Kom and Kom culture in emoji

Kom is a kingdom ruled by the Fon of Kom 👑, and it is known across Cameroon for passing the throne and inheritance through the mother's line. Its most famous treasure is the Afo-A-Kom, "the thing of Kom": a carved wooden figure 🪵 covered in beads 📿 that was taken from the palace at Laikom in 1966, recognised in the United States in 1973 and brought home in 1974 to great celebration.

The Kilum-Ijim mountain forest 🌲⛰️, shared with neighbouring Oku, is home to Bannerman's turaco 🐦, a red-winged bird found only in these highlands. At home, corn fufu 🌽 with njama-njama huckleberry greens 🥬 is the classic Northwest meal, coffee ☕ grows on the hillsides, and drums 🥁 lead the dances at the palace.