Shupamem: The Most Revolutionary Language in the world-gctid258245

[cuitocuanavale]

This post is long overdue. I have been for the past few months compiling research about Shupamem, the most revolutionary language in the world. Shupamem is the language spoken by the Bamoun people of the Cameroon Grasslands. The Shupamem language is also commonly known as the Bamun/Bamoun/Bamum language by outsiders. The Wikipedia entry regarding the Shupamem language is as follows:

Bamum (Shüpamom [ʃŷpǎˑmə̀m], "Bamum language"), or Bamun, also in its french spelling Bamoun, is an Eastern Grassfields language of Cameroon, with approximately 420,000 speakers. The language is well known for its original script developed by Emperor Ibrahim Mbouombouo Njoya and his palace circle around 1895. Cameroonian musician Claude Ndam is a native speaker of the language and uses it in his music.

Bamum has tone, long vowels, diphthongs and coda consonants.

[cuitocuanavale]

The Shupamem language is commonly written with a writing system called Akauku. Akauku was developed when Emperor Njoya decided to modernize the Bamoun hieroglyphs. Njoya was influenced to modernize the Bamoun hieroglyphs because he felt very annoyed about the growing presence of eureurasiaans in the Bamoun Federation. He feared that colonialism would force the destruction of Bamoun history(which was at that time primarily transferred orally) so he decided to embark on a mission to modernize the Bamoun Glyphs. The process was a 7 stage process of linearization from the original 3 DImensional Lerewa Hieroglyphs to the 2d Akauku Memfe writing. The list of the different stages in the process are as follows:

Phase 1:
The initial form of Bamum script, called Lewa or Lerewa ("book"),  was developed in 1896-7. It consisted of 465 pictograms (511 according  to other sources) and 10 characters for the numbers 1-10. The writing  direction could be top-to-bottom, left-to-right, or bottom-to-top.  (Right-to-left was avoided because that was the direction of the aAmwic  script used by the neighboring Haunited snakes people.) The Lerewa heiroglyphs were an amalgamation of different traditional glyphs used in Bamun secret societies. When Emperor Njoya first organized this stage he had to gain the trust of what could be called the "deep state" in Bamun and the traditional diviners so that his mission of literacy and literature advancement in Bamun could be carried out. Traditionally it is said that Njoya came up with the 500+ hieroglyphs off of the top of his head in a dream. This is just a silly story told to eureurasiaans to hide the true cultural origins of the Bamun writing. The Bamun are the descendants of the Tikar people and the Tikar people are just ancient Nubians who decided to leave the Hapi River Valley and migrate to Central Kmt. The original Bamun hieroglyphs are just Central Kmtyw variations of the Nubian/Kemetic Mdw Ntr.

Phase 2The second system, called Mbima  ("mixed"), was developed in 1899-1900. It was a simplification of the  first; Njoya omitted 72 characters but added 45 new ones. The writing  direction was left-to-right in this and all subsequent phases.

Phase 3The third system, called Nyi Nyi Nfa'  after its first three characters, was developed around 1902. This  simplification omitted 56 characters, leaving 371 and 10 numbers. The History and Customs of the Bamun known as the Bamun Historigraphical  Bible was written in this script and in correspondence with Empress Njapdunke, the mother of Emperor Njoya. Each phase of the linearization  process represented a different phase of consciousness and technological  development. Emperor Njoya in the development of the Mbima glyphs  wanted to preserve the ancient heritage of the Bamun people as migratory  descendants of the Ancient Kemites and Nubians.

Phase 4The fourth system, called Rii Nyi Nsha Mfw'  after its first four characters, was developed around 1907-8. It has  285 characters and 10 numbers and is a further simplification of the  previous version.

Phase 5The fifth system, called Rii Nyi Mfw' Men, was also developed around 1907-8. It has 195 characters and 10 numbers and was used for a Bible translation. These first five systems are closely related: All were pictographic and progressive simplifications of the former. It must be noted that Emperor Njoya would use this original translation of the Bible in Rii Nyi Mfw' Men as one of the foundations to develop his syncretic religion called "Nwet Nkwet" which was a combination of christianity, Islam and traditional Bamun beliefs.

Phase 6The sixth system, called A Ka U Ku  after its first four characters, was developed around 1910. It has 82  characters and 10 numbers. This phase marks a shift to a mixed  alphabetic and syllabic system allowing the expression of 160 phonemes. It was used to record births, marriages, deaths, and court rulings.

Phase 7The seventh and final system, called Mfemfe ("new") or A Ka U Ku Mfemfe,  was developed around 1918. It has only 80 characters, ten of which  double as both syllables and numbers. Like the previous system, this one  is a mix of letters and syllables. Missing syllables are written using  combinations of characters.

The 80 glyphs of modern Bamum are not enough to represent all of the consonant-vowel syllables (C V syllables) of the language. This deficiency is made up for with a diacritic or by combining glyphs having CV₁ and V₂ values, for CV₂.  This makes the script alphabetic for syllables not directly covered by  the syllabary. Adding the inherent vowel of the syllable voices a consonant: tu + u = /du/, fu + u = /vu/, ju + u = /ʒu/, ja + a = /ʒa/, ʃi + i = /ʒi/, puə + u = /bu/.

The two diacritics are a circumflex (ko'ndon) that may be added to any of the 80 glyphs, and a macron (tukwentis) that is restricted to a dozen. The circumflex generally has the effect of adding a glottal stop to the syllable, for instance kâ is read /kaʔ/, though the vowel is shortened and any final consonant is dropped in the process, as in pûə /puʔ/ and kɛ̂t /kɛʔ/. Prenasalization is also lost: ɲʃâ /ʃaʔ/, ntê /teʔ/, ntûu /tuʔ/. Sometimes, however, the circumflex nasalizes the vowel: nî /nɛn/, pî /pin/, rê /rɛn/, jûʔ /jun/, mɔ̂ /mɔn/, ɲʒûə /jun/ (loss of NC as with glottal stop). Others are idiosyncratic: ɲʒə̂m /jəm/ (simple loss of NC), tə̂ /tɔʔ/ (vowel change), ɲî /ɲe/, riê /z/, m̂ /n/, ʃɯ̂x /jɯx/, nûə /ŋuə/, kɯ̂x /ɣɯ/, rə̂ /rɔ/, ŋkwə̂n /ŋuət/, fɔ̂m /mvɔp/, mbɛ̂n /pɛn/, tî /tɯ/, kpâ /ŋma/, vŷ /fy/, ɣɔ̂m /ŋɡɔm/.

The macron is a 'killer stroke' that deletes the vowel from a syllable and so forms consonants and NC clusters (/nd, ŋɡ/) that can be used for syllable codas. Consonantal /n/ is used both as a coda and to prenasalize an initial consonant. The two irregularities with the macron are ɲʒūə, read as /j/, and ɔ̄, read as /ə/. The script has distinctive punctuation, including a 'capitalization' mark (nʒɛmli),  visually similar to an inverted question mark, for proper names, and a  decimal system of ten digits; the old glyph for ten has been refashioned  as a zero.