Semi-Bantu is a language classification within the Niger-Congo group of languages proposed by linguist Carl Meinhof.Carl Meinhof, Introduction to the Phonology of the Bantu Languages, Berlin:Reimer, Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse, Eds., African Languages, An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2000 The Semi-Bantu or Semibantu are specific inhabitants of the Western grassfields of Cameroon (portions of the Adamawa, West, Northwest, and Southwest regions), who speak languages that have certain characteristics to the Bantu language family, particularly the noun class system that is characteristic of Bantu languages.Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse, Eds., African Languages, An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 14, p.365 but are excluded from them. The people themselves are considered ethnically and linguistically divergent from other Bantu peoples of central and southern Africa.PRICE, DAVID. “WHO ARE THE TIKAR NOW?” Paideuma, vol. 25, 1979, pp. 89–98. JSTOR, . Accessed 2 Dec. 2022.Blench, Roger (2011). "'The membership and internal structure of Bantoid and the border with Bantu" (PDF). Berlin: Humboldt University. p. 16.
When these ethnic groups migrated into northern Cameroon, their languages were influenced by the languages of both Bantu-speaking ethnic groups in the forests to the south and of the Benue-Congo-speaking peoples of the savannas to the north.
References
Neba, Aaron (1999). Modern Geography of the Republic of Cameroon, 3rd ed. Bamenda: Neba Publishers.