Ngiemboon Alphabet

Ngiemboon (also spelled Ngyemboon) is written with the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages, the shared spelling system agreed in 1979 for the country's own languages. It uses the plain Latin letters the language needs and adds letters for its own sounds, such as ɛ, ɔ, ʉ and ŋ. Read in order, the Ngiemboon alphabet runs A B C D E Ɛ F G H I J K L M N Ŋ O Ɔ P R Pf S Sh T Ts U Ʉ V W Ẅ Y Ÿ Z, followed by the glottal stop ʼ. Most letters have capital and small forms; ʼ has no separate case form. The alphabet has no q or x; r appears mainly in borrowed words.

The double o in the name itself is not a typo: Ngiemboon writes long vowels by doubling them. Some spellings use two letters, including the alphabet entries Pf pf, Sh sh and Ts ts; Ng ng and Ny ny also occur in consonant sequences. The additional single-character letters are Ɛ ɛ, Ɔ ɔ, Ʉ ʉ, Ŋ ŋ, Ẅ ẅ and Ÿ ÿ, plus the glottal-stop sign ʼ and tone marks.

What ɛ, ɔ, ʉ, ŋ, ẅ, ÿ and ʼ stand for

The extra vowels come from the International Phonetic Alphabet, where each letter stands for one sound. Ɛ ɛ (open e) is close to the vowel of English bed, while plain e is higher, nearer French é. Ɔ ɔ (open o) is close to the vowel of British law, while plain o is the o of go. Ʉ ʉ (barred u) represents /ɯ/, a high back unrounded vowel, distinct from plain u. Ŋ ŋ (eng) is the ng of sing, and in Ngiemboon it can begin a word as well as end one.

Ẅ ẅ and Ÿ ÿ are the unusual pair: Unicode's locale data lists them as part of the Ngiemboon alphabet, where the two dots mark a different glide from plain w and y. ẅ is rare in the world's writing systems, so most keyboards lack it and it is a letter you will probably want to copy from a page like this.

The apostrophe-like ʼ is a full letter, not punctuation: it writes the glottal stop, the catch in the throat heard in the middle of English uh-oh. The right character is the modifier letter apostrophe ʼ (U+02BC), which software treats as part of the word; the curly quote ’ and the straight ' look almost the same and are what most people type, but they can split the word in search, sorting and spell-checking. Watch for look-alikes too: Ɛ ɛ is not the Greek epsilon ε, and Ɔ is not the reversed c Ↄ.

Tone marks: á à â ǎ and ɛ́ ɔ̀ ʉ̌

Ngiemboon is a tonal language: the pitch of a syllable can change the meaning of a word, so its orthography marks some tone distinctions with diacritics over vowels. High tone takes an acute (á), low tone is unmarked (a), high-descending tone takes a circumflex (â), low-descending tone a grave (à), and rising tone a caron (ǎ). A nasal that forms a syllable on its own can carry a tone too, which is why ḿ and ń are part of the set.

For a e i o u and for m and n, Unicode has ready-made accented letters, all in the grid. For ɛ, ɔ and ʉ it does not, so the accent is a separate combining mark typed straight after the letter: ɛ followed by the combining acute gives ɛ́, ɔ with the combining grave gives ɔ̀. Together, the two characters form a combining sequence; correct display depends on font and application support. If the mark lands beside the letter instead of over it, use a font and application that support combining-mark positioning.

How to type Ngiemboon letters on a keyboard and phone

The simplest way on any device is a free Cameroon keyboard from Keyman, which exists for Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone in both AZERTY and QWERTY versions and puts ɛ ɔ ʉ ŋ ʼ and the tone marks on keys. Without one, copy the letters from the grid above.

In Microsoft Word on Windows, type the code and press Alt+X: 025B ɛ, 0190 Ɛ, 0254 ɔ, 0186 Ɔ, 0289 ʉ, 0244 Ʉ, 014B ŋ, 014A Ŋ, 1E85 ẅ, 1E84 Ẅ, 00FF ÿ, 1E3F ḿ and 02BC ʼ; the combining tone marks are 0301 high, 0300 low, 0302 falling and 030C rising, typed after the letter. With the US-International layout, ' then a gives á, then a gives à and ^ then a gives â; on a Mac with the US layout, Option+E, Option+ and Option+I followed by the vowel do the same, and Option+U then y gives ÿ.

On a phone, long-press a vowel to get é è ê and the other accented forms the keyboard offers; ɛ ɔ ʉ ŋ and ẅ need a keyboard app or copy and paste. In HTML, write ɛ for ɛ, ɔ for ɔ, ʉ for ʉ, ŋ for ŋ, ẅ for ẅ, ÿ for ÿ and ʼ for ʼ.

Where Ngiemboon is spoken

Ngiemboon is spoken in the West Region of Cameroon, in the Bamboutos highlands around Batcham, west of Mbouda. A 2007 SIL orthography guide estimated about 250,000 speakers in Bamboutos Department and one group in Menoua Department, all in Cameroon. French is the language of school and administration in the region, so many speakers also read and write French, and Ngiemboon texts can follow French habits such as « » quotation marks. A Ngiemboon dictionary and Bible texts have been published.

It belongs to the Bamileke group of Grassfields Bantu languages. Its neighbours and relatives have their own collections on this site: Yemba (around Dschang), Ghomala (around Bafoussam and Bandjoun) and Medumba (around Bangangté) use the same Cameroonian letters, and the Bamun collection covers the language of Foumban, famous for King Njoya's own script. The Cameroon collection gathers the country's flag 🇨🇲, emoji and the letters of all its main languages, and the French collection has é è ç for the official language.