Grassfields Bantu languages

The Grassfields or Grassfields Bantu languages, spoken in the Western grassfields of Cameroon, are a branch of Benue–Congo and a sister group to the Bantu languages. Better-known Grassfields languages include the Eastern Grassfields languages Bamun, Yamba, and Bamileke, and the Ring language Kom.

The languages are closely related, sharing approximately half of their vocabulary.

The Grassfields languages were previously known as Grassfields Bantu and Semi-Bantu. They are sometimes classified on two levels, Wide Grassfields, which includes all the languages, and Narrow Grassfields, which excludes Menchum, Ambele, and sometimes the Southwestern Grassfields languages. These may form a group of their own, which Nurse (2003) calls Peripheral Grassfields but rejects.

Blench (2010) notes there is little evidence for the traditional assumption that non-Western Momo belongs in Grassfields, and that it may actually be closer to the poorly established Tivoid group; Western Momo is therefore renamed Southwest Grassfields to avoid confusion, and only Menchum and Ambele are left out of Narrow Grassfields. The classification of Amebele is unclear, though it is clearly divergent, and Menchum may be closer to the Tivoid languages (Blench 2011). Blench (2012) suggests that Western Beboid may belong here.

Semi-Bantu

Semi-Bantu or Semibantu is a non-genealogical term that refers to those African languages spoken by the inhabitants of the Western grassfields of Cameroon (portions of the Adamawa, West, Northwest, and Southwest provinces) which are Bantoid languages but don't belong to the Bantu language family.

These languages have been influenced by the languages of both Bantu-speaking ethnic groups in the forests to the south and of the Benue-Congo-speaking peoples of the savannas to the north.

The three major ethnic groupings who speak Semi-Bantu languages in Cameroon are the Bamileke, Bamum, and Tikar. The three groups share many similarities of culture and may come from a common ancestral people.

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