Kpwe language
Bantu language spoken in Cameroon
| People | Bekpak |
|---|---|
| Language | Rikpa |
Kpwe (Mokpwe) is a Bantu language of Cameroon. It is mutually intelligible with Kole, and probably with Mboko (Wumboko) as well.
There are multiple variants of the name: based on 'Kpwe' (Bakpwe, Mokpwe), on 'Kpe' (Mokpe), on 'Kweɾi' (Kwedi, Kweli, Kwili, Kwiri, Bakwedi, Bakwele, Bakweri, Vakweli, Bekwiri), as well as Ujuwa and Vambeng.
01Phonology
The Kpwe phonological inventory is as follows,
Vowels
Consonants
| Bilabial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋʷ · ŋm | ||
| Plosive | prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᶮdʒ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡb |
| voiced | (b) | dʒ | (ɡ) | ɡb | ||
| voiceless | (p) | t | k | kp | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | ||||
| voiced | β | |||||
| Rhotic | zr§ | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||
§/zr/, the 'liquidized alveolar fricative', may be realized as [zr], [ʒr], [rz] or [rʒ]. This sound is rendered /s/ in some sources, and is cognate to /s/ in Bubia.
/p/ and /ɡ/ in parentheses are only found in loans, while /b/ is very uncommon and in many inflections freely alternates as [w].
Tone
Kpwe contrasts five tones on short syllables: high, downstepped high, low, rising and falling.
02Literature
The first portions of the Bible were made available in Mokpwe in 2009. This was followed by the New Testament, translated with help from the Bakweri Language and Literacy Association, (BALALIA) on 29 March 2025. The New Testament is available online, in places such as YouVersion.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kpwe language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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