Kolbila

Geography and history          (Sabine Littig, 2017)

Kolbila is a minority language ( less than 4000 speakers) within the Sama or Leko Group of the Adamawa language family. It’s spoken in the north-western Part of Cameroon. The Kolbila moved to their present area to find a safe settlement in the hills south of Poli. During colonization they left the hill settlements and settled in the foothills and adjoining plains, they came under Fulani overlords which caused serious problems and leaded to at least three major waves of migrations. The first wave was in 1954 mainly to Demsa. In 1972 a number of Kolbila left to settle at Mayo Boki. In 1976 there was another wave to Mbé. Nowadays there are several settlements of Kolbila among the main route from Ngoundere to Garoua but the majority still lives in the Region of Bantanjé.

Kolbila is an offshoot of Samba Leko which has been described by Gwennaëlle Fabre in 2003. As a result of the different migration waves the language came recently into contact with languages of the Duru Group i.e. Dii and Doyayo. One of the major contact languages is Fulfulde which is used as Lingua Franca in the northern regions of Cameroon.