New Views on Cameroon English

Contents

1.  INTRODUCTION  3

2.  THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT “ENGLISH IN WEST AFRICA BEFORE  

  THE YEAR 2000  4

2.1  THE COMPLEX LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN WEST AFRICA  4

2.1.1  The status of English in West Africa  5

2.1.2  The function and use of English in West Africa  5

2.2  THE VARIETIES OF ENGLISH IN WEST AFRICA  6

2.2.1  West African Pidgin and Creole English  7

2.2.2  Standard West African English (WAE)  8

3.  NEW VIEWS ON CAMEROON ENGLISH: DISTIN CT NATIONAL VARIETY OF  

  ENGLISH?  10

3.1.  THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC SITUATION IN CAMEROON AND THE ANGLOPHONE SPEECH  

  COMMUNITY  11

3.1.1  The de facto status of English in Cameroon  12

3.1.2  The Anglophone speech community  13

3.1.3  Cameroon English: a symbol of Anglophone “identity  15

3.2  LEXICAL PECULIARITIES OF CAME  17

3.2.1  Frenchification of the lexicon of CamE  17

3.2.2  Nativization of Cameroon English  19

3.2.3  Contextualization  21

4.  CONCLUSION  23

  APPENDIX  26

  REFERENCES  27

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1. Introduction

English in West Africa is a complex field of investigation in the broader context of the “World Englishes”. For many years, researchers have focused on linguistic characteristics of the numerous varieties of English in this area and mostly subsumed them under the label “English in Africa” or “West African English” (WAE) (e.g., Spencer 1971; Todd 1984b; Kachru 1995, Schmied 1991). Only little attention has been paid to the single national varieties ¹ including Cameroon English (henceforth CamE), which is in fact a very interesting case for sociolinguistic analysis due to its status as a co-official language beside French in a multilingual environment. This paper aims to show that new approaches to the national West African varieties, in this case CamE, try to fill the gap of comparative research in this linguistic area. The first part of this paper shall introduce the reader to the complexity of the linguistic situation in West Africa in general. The status, function, and use of English in the anglophone West African countries will be determined in chapter 2. Then I will give an overview about the development of the two most important varieties of English spoken there, namely Pidgin English (PE) and WAE. This chapter will therefore serve as a basis of knowledge for the third chapter, which is the main part of this paper and deals with the new approach of Hans-Georg Wolf (2001) to “English in Cameroon”. By showing the results of the author’s study about the extraordinary sociolinguistic situation in Cameroon on the one hand and the lexical peculiarities of CamE on the other hand, I will support his main thesis, which classifies CamE as a distinct national variety within the linguistic region of West Africa. Finally, I will draw a conclusion and give proposals for further studies in this field of investigation.

¹ Nigerian English is an exception, because Nigeria’s great dominance in terms of population makes this variety the prototype of WAE (cf. Wolf 2001: 42)

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2. The state of knowledge about “English in West Africa” before the year 2000

The English language in West Africa is present in a continuum of forms ranging from native-like English, via local second language varieties to Pidgin English or Creoles. In Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon, English is mostly spoken as an L2 (cf. Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 423-25). Still in Liberia, a state created for repatriation of freed black slaves from America, English is the first language for about 20% of the population (US.G.CIA 2003a, online). Apart f rom native and second language English, Pidgin English is a widespread lingua franca. This former language of trade is used in many varieties along the coast in all six West African countries (cf. Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 423). Furthermore, Pidgin English has become creolized in some areas. In Sierra Leone, for example, Krio, an English-based creole, is a n L1 for 10% of the population and 95% of the remainder understand this official language (US.G.CIA 2003b, online). The linguistic complexity of anglophone West Africa and its most important English varieties will be described in the following sections.

2.1 The complex linguistic situation in West Africa

West Africa is with its estimated 1000 or more indigenous languages one of the most linguistically complex regions in the world (cf. Todd 1982b: 281). The exact number of languages in the six anglophone West African countries is unknown because of difficulties in classification of languages and dialects ² . However, the Ethnologue (Grimes, B. (ed.) SIL 2004a- f, online) lists 471 languages for Nigeria, 282 for Cameroon, 34 in Liberia and in Ghana, 23 in Sierra Leone, and 13 for Gambia. On top of all the indigenous languages the colonial languages, i.e. English, French and Portuguese, have been superinduced in the former colonies. English has become the most important second language in West Africa and is usually referred to as West African

² For a detailed discussion of methodological difficulties in the classification of languages and dialects see Wolf 2001: 149f.

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English (WAE) or Standard West African English (StWAE) (cf. Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 424f. ; Todd 1982b: 287f.; Schmied 1991: 60f. ). The following two sections describe the status of the English language in the six anglophone states on the one hand, and its func tion and use on the other hand.

2.1.1 The status of English in West Africa

A crucial factor in determining the status of English in a country is the government’s language policy. Usually the government allocates which language is used in administration, parliament, jurisdiction and education by laws. The co-existence of so many languages in the West African nation-states has raised the problem of finding an adequate language for education and as a means of general interethnic communication. Often the choice has fallen on the colonial languages, because there was no widely accepted indigenous language to fulfill this function (cf. Schmied 1991: 23-27). In Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana, the choice has fallen on English as the sole official language. In Nigeria, next to English, the three major indigenous languages Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo are being developed additionally as official languages. Cameroon, however, is a special case in West Africa, because French and English are both official languages. The reason for this is the unification of the former separated British and French colonial areas. Despite the different language policies, all six states use English for educational, administrative and many other official and unofficial purposes (Spencer 1971: 1; cf. Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 424).

2.1.2 The function and use of English in West Africa

English fulfills most of the developmental and educational functions in West Africa. Schmied (1991: 26) and Gramley and Pätzold (1992: 424), talk of “triglossia” with a linguistic hierarchy determined by geographical range: at the bottom, African vernaculars are used for local (often rural) communication; at an intermediate level, the regional languages (African lingua franca) are common for wider communication; and the outside or exogenous language, in this case English, are used for national and international communication. The vernaculars and English are not in conflict, but are rather complementary in

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most environments. English has the function of a ‘high language’ used in formal and public situations and in writing, whereas local languages are the ‘low languages’ used in informal, private, vernacular, oral communication. Speakers of different ethnic groups, who do not share a native language, prefer to communicate in a regional, ethnically neutral language. If there is no ethnically neutral lingua franca, English (in any form) will be used for interethnic communication (Schmied 1991: 27; cf. Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 424). Schmied further emphasizes that “[on] the whole, […], the delicate bi- or trifocal sociolinguistic pattern has remained remarkably stable in many African countries over the last few decades” (Schmied 1991: 27). When talking about the English language in Africa, one has to be aware of the fact that it is spoken there in many varieties. The next section deals with these varieties of English.

2.2 The varieties of English in West Africa

The great variety of English in West Africa is as manifold as the variation of the sociolinguistic environment in which it is used. Referring to all these varieties in the past simply as “English” can only be seen as a gross overgeneralization from today’s point of view. Therefore, Gramley and Pätzold speak of a “continuum of sorts” of English in Africa. This continuum ranges from “British Standard English ( StE) with a (near) RP accent via a local educated second-language variety, to a local vernacular and to West African Pidgin or one of its creolized forms” (Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 425). They see the present diversity of English in West Africa as a result of the European colonialism. Similarly, Todd (1982b: 284f.) stresses that “each West African country had unique contacts and an individua l history”, but she finds it useful to distinguish four types of WAE. The first and most common type is Pidgin English (PE), which can be found in many varieties along the West African coast from Gambia to Equatorial Guinea. The second type is second-language English (ESL), which is often acquired at school and is strongly influenced by the mother tongue(s) of the individuals. Next, Todd differentiates between standard West African English (WAE), a written standard based mainly on British norms, and francophone West African English (EFL), which is taught in the francophone parts of West Africa. This variety is mainly influenced by

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French in lexis, syntax, and occasionally in phonology. However, she emphasizes that these labels can only be understood as “idealizations, because the sub-varieties influence each other and are influenced by other world varieties of English” (Todd 1982b: 300). Todd’s four types of English correspond to a great part with the classification of Josef Schmied (1991) in his book about “English in Africa”. He distinguishes between “native English of locally-born Africans” (PE), “non-native English spoken fluently as a second language ” (WAE), “native English of African-born whites and expatriates” (StE) ³ , and finally “non-native English spoken imperfectly as a foreign language” ( EFL) (Schmied 1991: 46-47). Summarizing, one can say that linguists distinguish between four varieties in West Africa: native- like Standard English (StE), situated at the upper end of the continuum, followed by West African English spoken as a second language (WAE). The third variety is called West African Pidgin English (WAPE) or Creole English and finally, there is English as a foreign langua ge (EFL) at the lower end of this continuum. In the following sections WAPE and WAE, the most widespread varieties, will be described more detailed.

2.2.1 West African Pidgin and Creole English

West African Pid gin English (WAPE), the most widespread variety of English on the coastal areas, has developed during the 17 ^th and 18 ^th centuries and used to be the language of trade with the British. WAPE continues to be used today in a range of varieties and has become creolized in several mixed communities (cf. Todd 1982b: 284). A neat linguistic distinction between a Creole and a Pidgin is impossible here, because many West Africans learn Pidgin English as one of their mother tongues. Although regional, social, and educational differences do exist, mutual intelligibility is achieved between speakers of Pidgin and Creole English varieties along the West African coast from Gambia to Cameroon (Todd 1982b: 292). Gramley and Pätzold (1992: 426) state that “It [Pidgin English] is a “diglossically Low language like most of the indigenous vernaculars“. They further assume that it can be learned easily due

³ Schmied (1991: 46-47) includes this type of English, because he deals with the whole African continent including South Africa, which has a significant number of English speaking whites.

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