Aba'NE Akamte Negham NE Ageumba

There are three primary objectives in this book. The first is to develop a linguistic system for writing Central Standard 'geumba (CS'). The second objective is to assist those who speak CS' to be able to write it. The third is to assist none native speakers of CS' to learn to speak and write Central Standard 'geumba.

The area comprising the villages of Mankon, Tsohn-Mba' Mbatu and Nso'gwa constitute a geo-political and linguistic region referred to as Central 'geumba. Although Ndzng is not in the geo-political region, it is within the Central 'geumba linguistic region and the dialect is essentially Mankon. Since the 'geumba dialects spoken in the geo-political and linguistic region are very similar, the 'geumba language in this book is referred to as Central Standard 'geumba (CS') - a derivative of the dialects in Central 'geumba linguistic region of Bamenda. This derivative is spoken in the urbanized areas of Bamenda; notably in Nitob, Ntarinkon, Mbatu and Ns'gwa where a confluence of the Central 'geumba dialects has resulted in the evolution of CS'.

In order to further advance CS', a streaming approach is used in standardizing the written language. Streaming involves navigating through the Central 'geumba dialects and looking for new words, commonality in pronunciation/usage of existing words as well as looking for words that have similar meaning but do not have a complex speech sound.

The reader will find value added information in this book which here-to-fore has not been present in 'geumba lexicon such as, numeral counts up to one centillion, metric conversions to CS', Cardinal points in CS', and a new format for describing time in CS'.


SAF