Consonant clusters

Consonant clusters do exist in Kamtok. Dwyer and Smith (1966) report that in some forms of Kamtok speech, /s/ can precede /p, k, t, m, n, l/ in words such as: /spun/ ‘spoon’, /skul/ ‘school’, /stik/ ‘stick’, /smɔl/ ‘small’, /snek/ ‘snake’ and /slak/ ‘weak’.

Consonant clusters are also formed by /p, b, f, k, g, d, s/ preceding /l/ and /r/. Here are some examples:

Dwyer and Smith (1966) note that, in addition to occurring by themselves in Kamtok, nasals are often homorganic with other consonants. But they do not seem to consider such nasal + consonant combinations as forming clusters because the preceding vowels are nasalized. Some examples, however, appear to involve genuine clusters:

Such nasal + consonant combinations are not limited to words taken from Cameroonian languages, as the /nj/ in /jinja/ ‘ginger’ shows.