Before you start your journey to learning the Bamum language, we'd like to let tell you how this project began!
This site is the project of Tramel Woodard, a web developer and an amateur linguist. Tramel has been a web developer for over 20 years and during that time, developed a love for human languages as well as computer.
Tramel has spent 3 years studying both the Bamum language and its culture. He started with the history of the Bamum people and subsequently chose to learn the Bamum language and the Bamum script. This learning site is the second site that Tramel has made for the Bamum Script and language. The first site is called Bamum Project, a site dedicated to creating the first international learning network for the Bamum language and script.
During his second year of study, Tramel Woodard contacted Dr. Abdoulaye Laziz Nchare, a native speaker and teacher of the Bamum language. Together they have forged a partnership to help educate future students in the Bamum language.
The Learn Bamum project was started as a technical endeavour to bring the Bamum language to all available platforms including desktops, tablets and smartphones. In order to generate reliable learning content, it was absolutely necessary to request the assistance of Dr. Abdoulaye Laziz Nchare. With his help, our language learning system has been strengthened more than ever.
Dr. Abdoulaye Laziz Nchare is a professor of linguistics and anthropology and a native of the Bamum Kingdom. He is currently in the United States and has worked tirelessly to promote the learning of the Bamum language. Dr. Nchare has worked with Tramel Woodard for the past two years on creating a learning system for Bamum and has also acted as Chief Consultant on Woodard's Bamum Project, which includes the creation of a Bamum phonetic script and a Bamum phonetic keyboard.
Tramel Woodard invited Dr. Abdoulaye Laziz Nchare to California to help kick off the first Bamum Technical Conference in 2018. The meeting, which was the team's first time meeting each other, was both an informal friendly gathering as well as a serious talk about the technical aspects of learning and teaching the Bamum language and script.