Mmen (Bafmeng) is a Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon.
As a Centre Ring language of Narrow Grassfields, a subdivision of Wide Grassfields within the Southern Bantoid languages, Mmen is part of a cluster including six other languages i.e. Babanki, Bum, Kom, Kuk, Kung and Oku (Lewis 2009).
The name Mmen ([mÃÂn]) comes from the verb sé mwÃÂÃÂyn [sémãÃÂÃÂyn] âÂÂto open up thick bush-covered landâ and is used by the speakers referring to both their language and their land.
Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) and ALCAM, Atlas Linguistique du Cameroon (Dieu and Renaud 1983) use the name and spelling Mmen.
Bafumen is the name of the village where the largest number of speakers is found i.e. 30 000 (Troyer, et al. 1995:8) and the name adopted by German colonizers for the area and formerly used for the language. Other villages where Mmen is spoken are ChaâÂÂ, Yemgeh, Nyos, Ipalim among others.
Mmen has 27 phonemic consonants.
Mmen has 9 phonemic monophthongs.
Mmen also has six phonemic diphthongs, all ending in .
Mmen has 9 phonemic tones. There are three level tones (high, mid, and low) and six contour tones (high-low, high-mid, mid-low, mid-high, low-mid, and low-falling).