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Language name and location: Kam, Taraba State, Nigeria [Refer to Ethnologue]
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1. bīmbīnī / bĩ̄ * |
21. kpèi mì ɡún bĩ́ (lit: 'twenty back one') |
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2. jīrāɡ |
22. kpèi mì ɡún jíráɡ |
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3. tʃàr |
23. kpèi mì ɡún tʃàr |
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4. ǹdār |
24. kpèi mì ɡún ǹdār |
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5. ŋ̀wūn |
25. kpèi mì ɡún ŋ̀wūn |
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6. dʒùb (lit: six) |
26. kpèi mì ɡún dʒùb |
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7. dʒùbjī̄rāɡ (lit: six-two) |
27. kpèi mì ɡún dʒùbjī̄rāɡ |
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8. sár |
28. kpèi mì ɡún sár |
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9. ɲǐzā |
29. kpèi mì ɡún ɲǐzā |
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10. bò° |
30. àkpɔ̃́ bí rī ɡūn bò (lit: 'twenty back one') |
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11. bò ɡún bĩ́ (lit: 'ten back one') ** |
40. àkpɔ̃́ jíràɡ |
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12. bò ɡún jíráɡ (lit: 'ten back two') |
50. àkpɔ̃́ jíràɡ rī ɡūn bò |
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13. bò ɡún tʃár (lit: 'ten back three') |
60. àkpɔ̃́ tʃár |
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14. bò ɡún nār (lit: 'ten back four') |
70. àkpɔ̃́ tʃár rī ɡūn bò |
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15. bò ɡún w̃un (lit: 'ten back five') |
80. àkpɔ̃́ nár |
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16. bò ɡún dʒúb (lit: 'ten back six') |
90. àkpɔ̃́ nár rī ɡún bò |
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17. bò ɡún dʒúb jīrāɡ ('ten back six-two') |
100. àkpɔ̃́ w̃ūn, 120. àkpɔ̃́ w̃ūn kpèi mì |
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18. bò ɡún sár (lit: 'ten back eight) |
200. àkpɔ̃́ bō, 400. àkpɔ̃́ kpèi mì |
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19. bò ɡún ɲǐzā (lit: 'ten back nine') |
1000. dūbū <Hausa, 2000. jīrāɡ dūbū |
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20. kpèi mi° / àkpɔ̃́ bĩ́ *** |
1,000,000. mīljɛ́n < English |
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Linguist providing data and dateː Dr. Jacob Lesage, LLACAN (Langage, langues et cultures d'Afrique noire, Paris, July 2, 2018.
Lesage, J. (in preparation). A
grammatical description of Kam, an Adamawa (Niger-Congo) language of
North-eastern Nigeria. PhD-thesis (INALCO), Paris. |
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Other comments: Kam has a vigesimal system with special formation for number 7 . Kam (glottocode: kamm1249) is a language spoken in some 27 villages, in Bali Local Government Area, Taraba State, Nigeria. The biggest Kam village is Mayo Kam. My estimate (based on interviews with 16 village heads) is that there are currently (May 2017) somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 Kam speakers. The name Kam is an exonym of unknown origin. Speakers call themselves and their language Nyiwom (pronounced [ɲĩ́ w̃ɔ̃̀m], and in English spelled as Nyingwom), meaning 'Kam people'. The language is still very much alive, especially in the more remote villages, but most aspects of traditional culture, (including, for example, traditional stories), are now rarely performed and are no longer transferred to future generations. Since Greenberg (1963), Kam has been classified as an Adamawa language, but its relationship with the Adamawa group and other surrounding languages has not been studied in detail and requires much more scrutiny. Notes: 1. For number one, bīmbīnī and bĩ̄ is interchangeable. 2. For eleven, ɡūn comes from àɡún and is a noun; à is usually dropped if àɡún does not occur in isolation. 3. For 20, àkpɔ̃́ doesn't occur anywhere in isolation, only in numerals expressing in numbers divisibly by twenty. It may be related to word for body 'kpò' Kam [kdx, ] or āw̃ɔ̃̀m: phoneme inventory Jakob Lesage, LLACAN (Langage, langues et cultures d'Afrique noire (LLACAN), Paris)
02 July 2018 (preliminary version)
[1] Only occurs as a potential phoneme in the particle /βɛ̄/ ‘there, here’. Some informants are really strict about its pronunciation as a voiced bilabial fricative, others say it’s the same sound as /w/, or pronounce it as a voiced bilabial approximant. [2] Very infrequent phoneme, only occurs in the negator /hɪ̀n/, one verb /hwar/ ‘think’, and one temporal preposition /hār/ ‘until’ that is borrowed from Hausa. [3] This sound may be predictable on the basis of morphological position, or may only occur in weak prosodic positions. So far, I haven’t been able to establish a general rule, but I also haven’t been able to show that it is really contrastive either. It is often pronounced as glottal stop [ʔ]. [4] Nasal vowels are fairly infrequent. The contrast of /i/ and /ɨ/ is not very strong and only surfaces in a few minimal pairs; they are otherwise often interchangeable. The contrasts between /e/ and /ɛ/ and between /o/ and /ɔ/ likewise aren’t very strong. |
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