Papel language

Papel (Pepel, Papei), or Oium (Moium), is a Bak language of Guinea-Bissau.

Papel
Oyum
Native to	Guinea-Bissau, Senegal
Ethnicity	Papel
Native speakers	160,000 (2022)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Senegambian Bak Manjaku–Papel Papel
Dialects	Bolau Botor Bojimza Bosafim Bonzula Bontin Bomzum Bowoar Borawis Bosez Bopuul Bosalnka Bojaal
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pbo
Glottolog	pape1239

Papel is the language spoken by the Papel people, who live in the central coastal regions of Guinea-Bissau, namely the Biombo Region where it is spoken by 136,000 Bissau-Guineans. Papel speakers are estimated to be around 140,000 in total globally.^[2]

Papel has 79,000 speakers living on Bissau Island (called (b)uhlawʔ or (b)usawʔ in Papel). Dialects include Biombo (Papel: uyomʔ) in the southwest and Safim (Papel: safli) in the northeast.^[3]

Classification

Papel is part of the Bak language family based in the Senegal/Guinea-Bissau region, thus it is linguistically similar to the Mankanya and Mandjak languages, members of the 'Papel languages' a language sub-family. Today, Papel, along with its linguistic neighbours uses Latin-based script.

	Bak proper Balanta Jola languages (Diola) Papel languages Bijago