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Counting in Bamum

Hundred, thousand and beyond

ŋkʉrì, ŋkàmì: the large numbers.

Beyond the tens, Bamum has words of its own:

ŋkʉrì — one hundred
ŋkàmì — one thousand
nshʉpshə mí — one billion

And for zero, a reduplicated word, as often in the Grassfields languages:

ndəm ndəm — zero

👂 Note the initial ŋ of ŋkʉrì and ŋkàmì: it is a prenasalisation, one single sound, not two.

format_list_bulletedVocabulary in this lesson

  • ŋkʉrì
    100 — a hundred
  • ŋkàmì
    1000 — a thousand
  • ndəm ndəm
    0 — zero
  • nshʉpshə mí
    one billion

info_outline Source : Omniglot