The Njerep Language – A Vanishing Voice of Cameroon Languages are more than words—they are living embodiments of culture, identity, and history. One such remarkable language is Njerep, once spoken in the Adamawa region of Cameroon. Today, it is considered critically endangered, with only a handful of elderly speakers remaining, making Njerep one of the most fragile and rare languages in the world.
Njerep is part of the Mambiloid branch of the Benue-Congo family within the larger Niger-Congo language group, which includes hundreds of languages across sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, Njerep was spoken by a small ethnic group on the Mambila Plateau, near the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. Why Is Njerep Endangered? Like many minority languages, Njerep has suffered from the dominance of regional and national languages such as Fulfulde and French. Over the years, younger generations have shifted toward more widely spoken tongues, leaving Njerep to fade in everyday use. As of the ear...