Unlike the Duala language which has been written in standardized form for over a century, the Bakweri language still suffers from a lack of uniformity in its written form. So far, different attempts at the codification of Bakweri are largely unknown, with little system efforts being made to harmonize these disparate standards.
As Gertrude Ekobena points out in her book Okoa li langa na litila Mokpe, there has been no systematic and sustained effort to write the Mokpe language… Proper co-ordination has been lacking as well as institutional support. As a result the existing works on the language lack uniformity and there is a strong need to standardize the written Bakweri.
The Bakwerirama website is no exception to the rule, and is already confronted with the problem of standardization. For example do we refer to Great Soppo in Bakweri as: “Soppo”, “Sofo”, “Sovo”, zhopho or “Sopho”? As we have seen so far, it all boils down to personal preference – the worst possible method for keeping a language alive!!!
Faced with this challenge, the Bakwerirama team has decided to resolve this problem by adopting an orthography that conforms to the "Alphabet Général des Langues Camerounaises" or “General Alphabet for Cameroon Languages" which was adopted in 1979 as the standard for writing Cameroonian languages. Fortunately, the two major Bakweri language publications that we know of are based on the General Alphabet: Gertrude Ekobena’s “Okoa li langa na litila Mokpe /Learn to read and write Bakweri” and Edwin Ardener’s Mokpe-English dictionary.
By adopting the general alphabet, the Bakwerirama team hopes to act as a catalyst for the widespread acceptance of the standard, and to also make it easier for visitors to read and understand the sections of this website that are in Bakweri.
hello.i am a final year student in the university of buea.and i am required to do a research paper on mopkwe.I do not know very much about the language.i only wish to get some help
Posted by: Ekema Emile | Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 10:48 AM