Yom language

Yom
Yom
Native to	Benin
Ethnicity	Temba people, Yoba people
Native speakers	74,000 (2001)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Gur Northern Oti–Volta Yom–Nawdm Yom
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pil

Yom, or Pilapila, is a Gur language of Benin. It is spoken in the town of Djougou and the surrounding area. A very closely-related dialect called taŋgələm is also spoken by the Taneka people.

Phonology

Where it differs from the IPA symbol, the conventional orthography is given below the phoneme.

Vowels

In Yom orthography, long vowels are written as double vowels, e.g. <ɛɛ> for /ɛː/.

	Front	Back	Non-front, non-back
High	i, iː	u, uː	ʊ, ʊː
Mid	e, eː	o, oː	ə
Low	ɛ, ɛː	ɔ, ɔː	a, aː

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Labial-velar
Stop	p  b		t  d			k  ɡ		k͡p  ɡ͡b
Nasal	m		n		ɲ <ny>	ŋ		ŋ͡m
Affricate				t͡ʃ  d͡ʒ <c>  <j>
Fricative		f  v	s  z				ʁ <ɣ>
Lateral			l [1]
Approximant					j <y>			w

^1 Generally, /l/ is realised by [ɾ] in medial and final position. For some speakers, the two allophones are in free variation.

References

• Beacham, Charles Gordon (1968). The Phonology and Morphology of Yom.

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