Mesaka language

Mesaka
Ugarə
Native to	Cameroon
Native speakers	(14,000 cited 1982)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Tivoid Mesaka
Language codes
ISO 639-3	iyo
Glottolog	mesa1245

Mesaka, or Ugarə, is a Tivoid language spoken in Cameroon.

Batomo may be a separate language, or it may be the same as Motomo (Oliti, Matchi), a dialect of Iceve-Maci (Ethnologue, 22nd edition).

Phonology

Vowels

Vowel length is often contrastive in sequences of two similar vowels. Sequences of dissimilar vowels are not observed unless there's a consonant in-between.

Vowels of Mesaka

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		ä

Mesaka is also a tonal language with two tones: high and low.^[2]

References

1. Mesaka at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Blench, Roger M. (November 2011). "The Tivoid languages: Classification and Comparative Word List" (PDF). Retrieved 21 July 2022.