About the Mankon Language (MALA) Team

MALA Team

The Mankon Language Team is composed of men and women of integrity of Mankon origin with a primordial objective of developing the Language spoken by the Mankon people of Mezam Division in North West Province of Cameroon. Otherwise called Mankon-Ngeumba, this language is spoken by the Mankon indigenes who today number approximately 150,000.

<—break->The motivation behind this drive came up when it was identified that the Mankon language, customs, tradition and history which were handed over to the current generation by their ancestors orally was not being passed over to their progenies hook line and sinker and thus risked becoming moribund. This language is also suffering some negative effects due to globalisation and westernisation, wherein the youths look at imported models as ideal. The Fo of Mankon, a venerated supporter of the development of the Mankon Language in the year 2005 encouraged his subjects to take on the daunting task of developing the Mankon language. “The development of the Mankon Language will help us to document our history and culture.  I urge you to work with your peers to develop a nursery text in the Mankon language,” he told Soh Ade Fobudzong [sòʔó àdé fɔ̀bùdzǒŋ], one of the key founding member of this team. The team saw the light of day following some challenges that were put forward to members of the Mankon Forum yahoo emailing group way back in 2006 for members to embark on concrete projects.

This team as of date, stands out as a clearing house for all works published in the Mankon Language, to ensure consistency and standardization for the time being, until the language is considered standardized.  With this premise in mind, the team came into being as a child of necessity, with the founding members being ready to sacrifice, their time, talent and treasure for the cause.

Before proceeding with the efforts on developing the language, there was thus the need to identify what had been done in the past on the Mankon Language, notably by concerned Mankon elites, either as individuals or as a group. Mr. Henry Ayah, a member of the Mankon Language Committee (MALACO) and a representative of the Mankon Teachers Union, reviewed the initial drafts of Mankon International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA) and shared with the team the alphabets they had already established and were already using.  Mr. Ayah was very pleased with the work the team was doing. The MALACO alphabets were thus incorporated into the Mankon Language Team alphabets. MALACO alphabets that were not in the IPA were converted to IPA characters to ensure that Mankon alphabet was 100% IPA. Dr. John C. Wells, a professor of phonetics at the University of London to whom we are highly indebted, provided vital technical assistance to the team in the development of Mankon IPA.

The following persons, were members of the Mankon Forum Language Development Team and assisted in the harmonization of the Mankon IPA:

(1) Tse Neh Awah  (usa);
(2) Roseta Swiri Ade (USA);
(3) Soh Ade Fobudzong (USA);
(4) Dr. David Nebah Awasum (USA);
(5) Fobuzhi Ntsehwah Angwah-mulam (Germany);
(6) Festus Ndah (USA);
(7) Fru Monikang (Cameroon);
(8) Samuel Tsina Tse Fonteh (Cameroon); and
(9) Fru Ngang (Cameroon).

The orthography of Mankon-Ngeumba that was adopted uses the International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA).  It was agreed that the IPA is a lot easier to use in writing a tonal language like Mankon-Ngeumba because each alphabet has a very distinct sound.  Once the decision to use the IPA was arrived at by the authors, a subset of 37 IPA characters was identified from 107 IPA characters for use in developing the language.

Following the standardization of the alphabet and the urge from the Fo of Mankon to document the language, the first in the series of publication; Mankon for Beginners saw the light of day in February 2008, published by Samuel Tsina Tse Fonteh, Soh Ade Fobudzong and Roseta Swiri Ade.  You can purchase the book at Amazon.com.

This book presents and uses 37 IPA characters in Mankonese.  The goal in each frame is to introduce the sound of each IPA character to the learner.  To this end, a short story or folk tale is presented below the masthead of each character frame.  Interspersed below the masthead are words and/or pictures of objects, containing the IPA characters that are the subject matter of the frame.   Each frame thus enables the learner to learn the sound of the IPA character by associating the character sound with a picture containing the character.

The approach used by the team has principally been interactive, broad-based participation, and consultation. Members consult relatives, friends and other sources to get information, on which they brainstorm to arrive at a consensus. Membership is open to all bona fide Mankon indigenes who have indicated their interest in working on the Mankon language and any other well wisher who has the love of seeing Mankonese, standardized. The members correspond and work principally by using the internet, whereby each member selflessly sacrifices to research and file in contributions.

The current members of this team are of varied backgrounds; linguists, engineers, University students and researcher, teachers, medics etc. The members can not pretend to be gurus in the language. The driving force in the teams operations remains the urge and passion to harness what was handed to this generation, document and ensure it is correctly mastered, widely used and handed as a legacy to posterity. Members are co-opted based on recommendation from other members and also from people who indicate their interest to join. As of now, the team has 13 members.

The team has also standardized and transcribed into Mankonese, the days of the week which has 8 days and are almost done with the months of the year. These efforts have been highly acclaimed and have galvanized the team to forge ahead. Currently, the team is working on:

(1) Common Mankon Names and meanings (30 percent complete)
(2) Common Mankon Proverbs and meanings (20 percent complete)
(3) Names of Mankon Quarters and Meanings (5 percent complete)
(4) Local names of common plants in Mankon (2 percent complete).

The first publication, Mankon for Beginners has been financed exclusively from the personal efforts of some of the members of the team and also from donations by some distinguished members of the Mankon Community in Cameroon and abroad. We wish to applaud the example of Mr. Nicholas Ndeh Fofang, for his generous financial donation as well as members of the MACUDA community in the USA who supported the fund raising efforts during the 2007 MACUDA Convention in Baltimore Maryland. These donations were judiciously used in the publication of this book.

Dr. David Neba Awasum, a member of the Mankon Language Team, also made valuable contributions in the development of the preface of the first publication. All credit goes to the Mankon Forum for encouraging and nurturing the development of the language development team.  It is hoped that somehow, the team will be able to raise funds and ensure continuous publication of their works. The team counts on your patronage to consume these products and propagate Mankonese.

Mankon Language Team has great ambitions which shall remain alive and members are ready to go as far up the steeple (in the development of Mankonese) as you are willing to support their drive. Apart from documenting and publishing items in the form of books, articles and periodicals and using the internet, the team intends to subsequently produce teaching/study aids in the form of CDs and DVDs, to assist people study the language, and why not a Mankon dictionary. The Mankon Language Team’s next goal is to start work on a language book that will be suitable for Primary 1, 2 and 3.

We count on all Mankon people for whom this onerous task is being carried to serve as a resource and main source of information and inspiration. The team shall gladly welcome constructive criticisms (given that this will help to guide us as we forge ahead) from all who are concerned in this noble venture; for this remains a venture that must be won.