Medumba language


Medumba is a Grassfields language of Cameroon. The people who speak it originate from the Nde division of the West Region of the country, with their main settlements in Bangangté, Bakong, Bangoulap, Bahouoc, Bagnoun and Tonga. It is a major Bamileke language, and is located in an area where sacred kingship played a pivotal role in government, justice, and diplomacy. The modern history of the Bamileke area, which was a German colony placed under French trusteeship by the League of Nations in 1919, is closely associated with the nationalist movement of the Union des Populations du Cameroun, which developed primarily in the coastal hinterland and the western highlands. From 1956 to the late 1960s, this area of Cameroon experienced a period of unrest; this episode continues to shape Bamileke political culture, and has an impact on language identity and the linguistic landscape.
The Medumba-speaking area is famous for a bi-annual cultural festival — FESTAC: :fr:Festival des arts et de la culture medumba|Festival des arts et de la culture :fr:Festival des arts et de la culture medumba|Medumba — that promotes the Medumba language, as well as dance, artwork and food styles of the 14 different villages of the locality. The festival, which takes place over a 2-week period in early July, is hosted in Bangangte.

Language resources

Scholarship on the Bamileke cluster

Medumba is part of the Eastern Group of the Bamileke Cluster, which also include Fe'fe', Ghomálá', Kwa', and Nda'nda'. The Bamileke cluster — along with Ngemba, Nkambe and Nun — is part of the Eastern Grassfields subgroup which, together with the Ring languages and the Southwest Grassfields languages, constitute the Grassfield Bantu grouping.
Medumba figures prominently in linguistic research on the Bamileke cluster, partly because of the high quality of the work done by Jan Voorhoeve in the 1960s and 1970s, including work on :
This work was pursued by L. Hyman in the 1980s, on the closely related language Fe'fe'. It was re-invigorated in the early 2010s by research groups at Boston University and at the University of British Columbia. Some of these publications include:
Also notable are the scholarly contributions of Medumba speaker-linguists, including :
Recent work on Medumba is part of a more general push towards documenting the languages of Africa, in the face of rising levels of language endangerment. Cameroon — along with Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia — is reported to have one of the highest language mortality rates in Africa.

Literacy and orthography

Efforts to develop a Medumba orthography date back to the beginning of the 20th century, and are associated with the following milestones:
Currently, educational materials, literature and dictionaries for the language are produced by CEPOM, based in Bangangte. The combined output of missionary and CEPOM work has produced more that 80 publications on Medumba language and culture; these are published in French, English, and Medumba. Over time, publications in Medumba have used six different orthographies:
The current alphabet is given in Table 1.
In addition to simplex consonants, Medumba has numerous complex consonants, and these are represented as digraphs or trigraphs; see Table 2. Nasals, stops, and fricatives can be labialized; in the orthography this is represented as a CW digraph. Stops and fricatives can be pre-nasalized; in the orthography this is represented as an NC digraph or an NCW trigraph.
Orthographic conventions for tone-marking are as follows:
Recent developments in digital literacy have had an impact on Medumba. For example, a seven-language electronic calendar — in French, English, and the five national languages — sends information on time and date to an LCD screen via a VGA controller. The calendar has been developed as a way of mitigating the impact of language competition, and with the specific goal of raising the profile and prestige of the national languages in a context of language endangerment.

Medumba radio station

Radio FM 100 Medumba was established in 2000 by Medumba Kum Ntsi.

Segments

Initial research on the Medumba segment inventory was conducted by Voorhoeve in the early 1960s, and published in Voorhoeve. He identified15 vowels and 40 consonants. Not described by Voorhoeve are the plain and pre-nasalized bilabial trills /B/, /ᵐB/, which occur most often before central vowels /ʉ, ə/, which brings the total number of consonants to 42. The following two subsections survey the vowel and consonant inventory.

Vowels: 15 vowels

Medumba has a 10 simplex vowels, and 5 complex vowels.

Simple vowels

Table 3 gives the inventory of simple vowels, which include 5 closed vowels /i, ʉ, u, ɪ, ʊ/ and 5 non-closed /e, ə, o, a, ɑ/. See for examples.

Diphthong vowels

See Table 4 for the inventory of the five diphthongs, which include /ia, iə, ʉa, ʉɑ, uɑ/. See for examples.
Diphthongs involve a combination of a closed vowel /i,ʉ,u/ with a non-closed vowel /a,ə,ɑ/, as follows:
The canonical morpheme in Medumba is a single syllable, either an open CV syllable or a closed CVC syllable. This morpheme structure constraint has consequences for the consonant inventory. Indeed, a notable property of Medumba is that the number of contrastive consonants differs according to whether one considers consonants in onset position or consonants in coda position. Below, the consonant inventory is introduced, and the distributional differences between coda and onset consonants are described.
Medumba has 42 consonants, of which 18 are simplex consonants and 24 are complex consonants.

Simplex consonants

Table 5 gives the inventory of the 18 simplex consonants ; they are displayed according to place of articulation, and manner of articulation, and 2 voiced fricatives and 3 voiceless fricatives. Dashes indicate gaps in the consonant inventory.
Note the absence of the following segments:
Table 6 gives the inventory of the 24 complex consonants found in Medumba ; they are displayed according to the primary place of articulation and the nature of the secondary articulation. This includes 8 labialized consonants, 10 pre-nasalized consonants, and 6 pre-nasalized labialized stops. Complex consonants only occur in onset position; see the next section for exemplification.
Note the following gaps in the inventory of complex consonants:
Of the 40 consonants found in Medumba, only 7 can be coda consonants: the 3 nasal stops /m, n, ŋ/, the 3 counterpart voiced oral stops /b, d, ɡ/, and the glottal stop /ʔ/. See Table 7 for the list of coda consonants, ordered according to place of articulation, and manner of articulation. present examples of nasals in coda posit. present examples of oral stops in coda position, which display allophonic variation conditioned by the right-edge context.
Final nasals
Final nasals include bilabial /m/, alveolar /n/, and velar /ŋ/.
Final stops
Final stops includes bilabial /b/, alveolar /d/, velar /g/, and glottal /ʔ/.

Initial consonants

Table 8 presents the inventory of onset consonants and their allophones. The only consonant excluded from onset position is the glottal stop /ʔ/. All other consonants occur in onset position, so there are 39 possible onset consonants. In onset position, nasals may be plain or labialized. All other consonant types occur as plain, labialized, pre-nasalized, or pre-nasalized and labialized. In addition, onset consonants display allophonic variation that is conditioned by the following vowel. Examples are given below, as follows:
Initial labials include:
Initial alveolars include:
Initial palatals include:
Initial velars
Initial velars include:

Vowel insertion

Consonant-final words — which are generally CVC because of the size constraint that favours CV or CVC words —are often augmented by a final vowel. This process of vowel insertion happens in one of two contexts: before a pause; at then end of a sentence. The quality of the inserted vowel is conditioned by the final consonant: if the final C is a glottal stop, then the inserted vowel is schwa; elsewhere, the inserted vowel is a copy of the stem vowel. Examples illustrating vowel insertion are given in xx-yy.
a. koo b. cintEE
ko-o cin-te-e
love-FV xx-yy-FV
'to want, to love' 'to urinated'

Consonant mutation

Consonants in onset position surface with different variants. This consonant allophone, a form of consonant mutation, is conditioned by the following vowel. There are seven conditioning contexts, as follows:
  1. the non-closed vowels
  2. the closed vowels
  3. the high front vowel /i/
  4. the high non-front vowels /ʉ/ and /u/
  5. the high central vowel /ʉ/
  6. the high back vowel /u/
  7. the vowels /o/ and /ə/
Table 9 lists these seven contexts, along with the set of segments and phonological class that they target, the effect that they have, and the allophonic alternation that they condition.

Tone

Medumba is famous for the extent to which tone shapes grammar. Although having only a two-tone contrast, namely High and Low, surface tone melodies are conditioned by a variety of lexical, morphological and syntactic factors:
  1. lexically specified level Low and High tone
  2. morphologically derived falling and rising contour tones
  3. syntactically conditioned downstep, where H is produced at a lower pitch than a preceding H tone

    Two tones: high versus low

Medumba is described as a two-level tone system with low and high tones; examples are given in Table 16. Observe that the L/H contrast is found with all Lexical class categories; this includes verbs, nouns and prepositions. Likewise, Functional categories show an L/H contrasts; this includes verbal F-categories and nominal F-categories.

Tone contrasts with verbs

Verb stems come in two shapes, CV and CVC, with each one contrasting Low and High tone. See for examples of High/Low tone contrast with CV stems, and for examples of High/Low tone contrast with CVC stems.

Tone contrasts with nouns

In principle, given the possibility of a stem bearing associated with one of four tone melodies — namely L, L, H and H for nouns and L or H for verbs — one expects to find a four-way tone contrast for a given segmental base. No such examples are attested within a given word-class, but there is one instance elf a 4-way contrast across word-classes. In addition, there are a few three-way contrasts for a given noun base, and numerous many four-way tone contrasts with the same base, if one looks at tone melodies across word-classes.
Examples are given in.
Low-tone fù High-tone tʃə́ŋ

'medicine' 'food'

Tone contrasts with prepositions

Low-tone mbàŋ High-tone mʙə́

'next to' 'in front of'
nùm

'on'

ɲàm

'behind'

Tone contrasts with complementizers

Low-tone ndà High-tone mbʉ

'C' 'C'

Tone contrasts with demonstratives

Low-tone s-ə̂n High-tone N yə́n

AGR-this N Dem.Dist
'that N'

Tone contrasts with plural-marking

Low-tone bà N High-tone ba N

'PL' 'PL'

Falling and rising tones

In addition to level high and low tones, Medumba exhibits falling and rising contour tones. These contour tones are morphologically derived from floating H tones that occur as affixes preceding or following the stems they associate with. These floating tones make themselves known by docking to tone-bearing units associated with L-tone, thus forming a tone contour.
L-tone verb
ghʉ̀

do
'do’
Derived HL-tone verb
nghʉ̀

N-do
'do, consecutive’

Downstep

Medumba shows downstep, where H is produced at a lower pitch than an immediately preceding H tone; downstep is represented as. Downstep is viewed as resulting from a floating Low tone that shifts the pitch level of a following High tone one step lower than the preceding High tone. Downstep is syntactically conditioned in that it occurs at phrasal boundaries:

Morphology

Affixation

Medumba has several affixes including:

Nominal tone classes: LL, HH, HL, LH

Tone on Nouns: : Voorhoeve introduced a non-segment tone in order to distinguish two different low tone noun groups and two different high tone noun groups. For instance, naʔ and mfən both bear a segment low tone, but their tonal realization is different in the context such as mə jən mfən ___. For instance, naʔ in mə jən mfən naʔ bears a non-low tone, whereas mfen in mə jən mfən mfən bears a low tone. He proposed a four-way distinction, L, L, H, and H to account for the nominal tone groups. Examples are given in Table 10.

Verbal tone classes: L, H

Tone on Verbs: : The radical of the verb has only one tonal contrast, which is a Low and High contrast. The tone of radical may be realized differently in different contexts. For instance, a low tone verb that has a nasal prefix has a different tone from its non-prenasalized counterpart. Examples are provided to illustrate this phenomenon. Give examples of CV, CVC, CV-L and CVC-L)
The examples above show that the Low tone radical is realized as a high tone if the verb is prenasalized, whereas it is realized as a low-mid tone if the verb is not prenasalized. The High tone radical is realized as mid tone regardless of prenasalization. This effect is also found in Bamileke-FeʔFeʔ.

Noun classes

Voorhoeve identifies two characteristics of noun classes that surface in Medumba:
  • Systems of pairings between singular and plural prefixes
  • Concording nominal and prenominal prefixes
Voorhoeve also assumes that pronominal prefixes exist within the noun [class system, with these prefixes consisting of inherent tone morphemes such as the left-edge floating tone. The added prenominal tone creates a tonal difference between singular and plural noun class pairs, with generation of the plural form created by the singular.
Noun classes can be detached by singular and plural pairs.
Voorhoeve ascertains that the nasal prefix serves as a distinguishing factor between singular and plural noun pairs. As seen in Table 19, this nasal prefix does not surface in all constructions, especially with singular nouns that are already nasal word-initially.
Other noun classes in Medumba, however, exhibit derivation from Proto-Bantu noun classes, which had a strict parallel between singular and plural classes. In comparing agreement systems of Bamileke languages, Medumba behaves independently from the expected system. Compared to Proto-Bantu noun classes, there seems to be a noun class merger in Medumba. This merger occurs through the compression of various Proto-Bantu noun classes into a generalized noun class in Medumba. This can be seen in Table 13.
Proto-Bantu noun classes typically assign particular words to certain noun classes, but this is not exhibited in Medumba. This would imply the dissolution of strict noun classes like the ones found in Proto-Bantu, as the set noun classes are merging into one class, albeit still maintaining a noun class-like form. The flexibility of noun classes in Medumba could be correlated with inflectional morphemes acting as the noun class system, with these morphemes surfacing as left-edge floating tones.
Loan words are normally inserted into unrestricted noun classes. /látrí/, the loan word for "light" from English, can either be viewed as a mass noun or not, depending on the speaker. In the case of Medumba, this allows for any noun class to take a loan word.
In looking at interspeaker variation on the addition of loan words in Medumba noun classes, the instability of a formal noun class allows flexibility with speakers of various dialects This could be due to disagreement on how to lexicalize a new loan word between the various dialects. One such example is the loan word for "light", /látrí/. While one speaker chose to pluralize /látrí/ as /ndátrí/, the other speaker refused to pluralize /látrí/ as they believed it was a mass noun.
Younger speakers of Medumba are beginning to use forms of words that do not account for noun class, such as the first person possessive form /jɔm/. The first person possessive form normally varies depending on the noun it is possessing, such as in /látrí -ɔm/ or /ndátrí -t͡ʃɔm/. It is unknown as to how much younger speakers know about noun classes and agreement.

Pronouns: simplex, possessive, complex, reciprocal

Bamileke distinguishes four sets of personal pronouns: simplex, possessive, complex, and reciprocal.

Simplex pronouns

Simplex pronouns are differentiated according to syntactic position:
Almost all plural pronouns often begin with b-, which is a marker of plurality; see Table 15. The only exception to this is the 2pl pronoun jin, which is the elsewhere form.
The tone simplex pronouns depends on the following verb or auxiliary or the preceding verb. Examples of tone variation of pronoun in subject position. Example illustrates 1st me; 2sg u, 3sg o, and 3pl bu also behave as in. Example illustrate 1pl bag; 2pl bin also behaves as in.
a. mə kem men a. bag jen men
1sg see child 1pl see child
'I saw the child' 'We saw the child'
b. mə ke? jen men b. bag ke? jen men
1sg NEG see child 1pl NEG see child
'I did not see the child' 'We did not see the child'
c. mə do jen men c. bag do jen men
1sg Past. Recent see child 1pl Past.Recent see child
'I just saw the child' 'We just saw the child'
d. mə ke njen men d. bag ke njen men
1sg ?? see child 1pl ?? see child
'It was me who saw the child' 'It was us who saw the child'

Examples of tone variation of pronoun in object position. Example illustrates 1sg am; example illustrates 1pl jag. IPA
a. a dab am a. a dab jage
3sg beat 1sg 3sg beat 1pl
'S/he beat me' 'S/he beat us'
b. a na? ndab am b. bag ke? jen men
1 ?? N-beat 1sg 1pl NEG see child
'S/he beat me a bit' 'S/he beat us a bit'
c. a ton am c. a ton yage
3sg spy.on 1sg 3sg spy.on 1pl
'S/he spied on me' 'S/he spied on us'
d. a na? nton am d. a na? nton yage
3sg ?? spy.on 1sg 3sg ?? spy.on 1pl
'S/he spied on me a bit' 'S/he spied on us a bit'

Possessive and appositional pronouns

The tonal structure of possessive pronouns depends on the tonal structure of the preceding noun.
Provide examples ; use template from [subject and object">International Phonetic Alphabet">IPA
a. a dab am a. a dab jage
3sg beat 1sg 3sg beat 1pl
'S/he beat me' 'S/he beat us'
b. a na? ndab am b. bag ke? jen men
1 ?? N-beat 1sg 1pl NEG see child
'S/he beat me a bit' 'S/he beat us a bit'
c. a ton am c. a ton yage
3sg spy.on 1sg 3sg spy.on 1pl
'S/he spied on me' 'S/he spied on us'
d. a na? nton am d. a na? nton yage
3sg ?? spy.on 1sg 3sg ?? spy.on 1pl
'S/he spied on me a bit' 'S/he spied on us a bit'

Possessive and appositional pronouns

The tonal structure of possessive pronouns depends on the tonal structure of the preceding noun.
Provide examples ; use template from [subject and object pronouns above.

Complex plural pronouns

Complex plural pronouns specify the composition of the group of participants denoted by the pronoun.
1pl '
baag-ɟi bǎg-à-bo bâg-uɨ bág-à-bìn´
1pl-3sg 1pl-LINK-3pl 1pl-2sg 1pl-LINK-2pl
'us: me+him' 'us: them/us+her/him/them' 'us: me+you' 'us:me/us+you'
CHECK
2pl — —
bîn-jé bín-à-bo
2pl-3sg 2pl-LINK-3pl
'you all:you+him' = 'you all: you+them
CHECK = 'you all: you 3pl ' ''' — —
bô-jé bó-à-bo
3pl-3sg 3pl-LINK-3pl
'them:her/him+3her/him' = 'them:her/him+them
CHECK = 'them: them+her/him/them'
CHECK

Reduplicated reciprocal pronouns

bǎgbàg
bǎg-bàg
1pl-1pl
'1pl, exclusive: 'us between ourselves' CHECK
bənbən
bən-bən
1pl.in-1pl.in
'1pl, inclusive: us between ourselves' CHECK

binbìn
bin-bìn
2pl-2pl
'2pl: you all between yourselves'
bobo
bó-bó
3pl-3pl
'3pl: 'them between themselves'

Syntax

CP: clausal syntax

Medumba has a rich inventory of temporal and aspectual auxiliaries, and makes productive use of serial verb constructions.

Tense-marking

Medumba has finely articulated temporal contrasts, with up to 9 distinct past tense auxiliaries, and 5 distinct future tense auxiliaries.

Bracketed clause-typing

Medumba makes use of numerous clause-typing particles that occur at the beginning or end of the sentence: they are used to mark yes/no questions, content questions, relative clauses, as well as embedded clauses. In addition, there are two forms of negation, according to whether negation has scope over VP or CP: VP-scope negation is contrastive ; CP-scope negation denies the truth of a proposition p.

DP: nominal syntax

Associative N of NP construction

Associative noun constructions, which usually translated as 'Noun1 of Noun2', as in bǎm mɛ́n, are analyzed with a floating tone interposed between the two nouns. The presence of this floating tone is reflected by the tone melodies borne by the nouns that precede or follow it. This associative tone, first hypothesized by Jan Voorhoeve, may be high or low depending on the class and tone pattern of the preceding noun. The tone may lower the pitch-level of Noun2 ; or it may combine with the final vowel of Noun1, resulting in a contour tone.
For example, in, the first line represents the theorized underlying tonal melody of the two nouns, with the L tone associative marker in bold. The second line shows the two tones which are actually pronounced at the surface, with the pitch level shown in brackets. Likewise in, the first line shows the theoretical tonal melody of what at the surface are pronounced as a LH contour on Noun1 and a down-stepped high tone on Noun2. Thus, in brackets we see a slash indicating a rise from low to high pitch, and a mid-level line indicating a mid-range pitch.
L- ' -H-) L- -H-
L H LH ↓ H
nzwi mɛn bǎm mɛn
nzwí mɛ́n bàám ↓ mɛ́n
woman of child belly of child
'the woman of the child' 'the belly of the child'

Examples to illustrate the realization of the associative in contexts where Noun1 is L-tone and Noun2 is H-tone. Whether or not Noun1 is theorized to be followed by a floating L or H tone has no effect on the surface form and, and and ). What does have an effect is the tone of the associative marker—in and it is H, while in and it is L, resulting in an LH contour on Noun1.
The effect that the associative tone has on either of the two nouns may be dependent on which floating tones accompany those nouns, which in turn is decided by their noun class. Examples to illustrate the realization of the associative in contexts where Noun1 is H-tone and Noun2 is H-tone. As with to, in examples and we can see that the floating tone following the noun has no effect on the surface form—if the associative marker is H, then the surface form will always be two level H tones, or else an HL contour followed by an H tone, varying by speaker or dialect. In the case of and, the floating tone which follows the noun does have a perceptible effect. In, the surface form is either an H tone followed by an L tone, or else an HL contour followed by a L tone. However, in the only available choice is a H tone followed by down-stepped H, demonstrating that the theorized underlying tones do have an effect on the pitch at which tones are actually pronounced.
Resolution of associative tone: L-tone Noun1 + H-tone Noun2

L- ' -H- L- -H-
L H L H ↓ H
mfə̀n mɛn bàm mɛn
mfə̀n mɛ́n bàá ↓ mɛ́n
1.chief of child 5.belly of child
'the chief of the child' 'the belly of the child'
L- ' -H- L- ' -H-
L H L H ↓ H
nà mɛn kɔ̀ mɛn
nà mɛ́n kɔ̀O ↓ mɛ́n
3.cow of child 5.spear of child
'the cow of the child' 'the spear of the child'


Resolution of associative tone: H-tone Noun1 + H-tone Noun3

H- ' -H- H- ' -H-
H H or H L or
H L H H L L
mɛn mɛn ju mɛn
mɛ́n mɛ́n ʒú mɛ́n
1.child of 1.child 3.thing of 1.child
'the child of the child' 'the thing of the child'
H- ' -H- H- ' -H-
H H H ↓ H
H L H cʉ mɛn
nzwi mɛn tɨ́ ↓ mɛ́n
nʒwí mɛ́n 3.tree of 1.child
nzwí mɛ́n 'the tree of the child'
1.woman of 1.child
'the woman of the child'

Post-nominal and pre-nominal demonstratives

Medumba demonstratives include three elements:
The normal order or demondtratives is postnominal, yieding . Divergence from this canonical order is possible, so that is also attested, and yields a contrastive focus reading, where the noun is contrasted with other deictic alternatives.

Combining Nouns with Adjectives, Numerals and Demonstratives

Within the DP, there are 8 possible word order variations, taking into account the order of nouns, adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals. These are divided by Kouankem into post-nominal and pre-nominal variations. The possible word orders are :
Post-nominal word order variation

N A Num Dem
bun sɛŋkɛ kua cən li
give IPA
children black four DEM.PRX
'these four black children'
N Num A Dem
bun kua sɛŋkɛd cən li
give IPA
children four black DEM.PRX
'these four black children'

N A Dem Num
bun sɛŋkɛd cən li kua
give IPA
children black DEM.PRX four
'these four black children'

Pre-nominal word order variation

A N Num Dem
mbwo bun kua cən li
give IPA
beautiful children four DEM.PRX
'these four beautiful children'
A N Dem Num
mbwo bun cən li kua
give IPA
beautiful children DEM.PRX four
'these four beautiful children'

Dem A N Num
cən mbwo bun kua li
DEM.PRX beautiful children four ??
'these four beautiful children'
Dem N A Num
cən bun sɛŋkɛd kua li
DEM.PRX children black four ??
'these four black children'
Dem N Num A
cən bun kua sɛŋkɛd li
DEM.PRX children four black ??
'these four black children'

AP: adjectival syntax

There are three kinds of adjective classes in Medumba, which differ in their order relative to the noun they modify.

Pure adjectives

There are a limited number of pure adjectives. These are further divided into two classes. Class 1 pure adjectives always appear before their noun. Class 2 pure adjectives typically appear after the noun, but can appear before the noun in a contrastive context.

Nominal adjectives

Verbal adjectives

PP: Prepositional Syntax

Medumba has four locative prepositions: mbàŋ, mʙəә́, ɲàm, and nùm.
While there are several strategies for forming prepositional phrases involving overt prepositions or “locative specifications”, there are no overt locative prefixes which correspond to the Bantu locative classes,, and . However, there is a covert prefix in the form of a floating H tone whose presence may be detected in certain contexts by its effects on the pitch of surrounding tones, which Voorhoeve hypothesizes that it may be the remnant of those locative classes. The interpretation of a noun marked with this tone is variable and context dependent, generally corresponding to prepositions like on, at, or in.

Conventions for presenting Medumba language data

The following conventions are used to present Medumba language data
Thus, example is presented as follows:
Orthography: a. me kem men a. bag jen men
IPA:
Gloss: 1sg see child 1pl see child
Translation: 'I saw the child' 'We saw the child'
Orthography: b. me ke? jen men b. bag ke? jen men
IPA:
Gloss: 1sg NEG see child 1pl NEG see child
Translation: 'I did not see the child' 'We did not see the child'
Orthography: c. me do jen men c. bag do jen men
IPA:
Gloss: 1st Past.Recent see child 1pl Past.Recent see child
Translation: 'I just saw the child' 'We just saw the child'
Orthography: d. me ke njen men d. bag ke njen men
IPA:
Gloss: 1sg ?? see child 1pl ?? see child
Translation: It was me who saw the child' It was us who saw the child'