Cameroon Pidgin English at the Service of Local Culture, Science and Technology

Abstract

Despite divergent views about the status of Cameroon Pidgin English (henceforth CPE), some researchers such as Atechi (2011); Chia (1983); Mbangwana (2004) etc. are nevertheless unanimous that the language is the most widely spoken lingua franca in the country. Kouega (2008), came up with a dictionary of Cameroon Pidgin English to buttress the fact that it is an autonomous language which has attained maturity. Alobwede (1998: 54) carried out a survey on the acquisition of Pidgin English and English as a first language in some major towns in Cameroon and indicates that CPE is the majority language in Bamenda, Mamfe, Kumba, Buea, Limbe, Douala and Yaounde when compared to the acquisition of English. Equally, Mbangwana (2004:23) posits that 97.8% Anglophone and 61.8% francophone Cameroonian urban dwellers speak CPE. From the statistics above, it is evident that more people are proficient in CPE, feel at home with it, and use it more than the official languages (English and French). Consequently, most cultural, scientific and technological knowledge is concealed from the majority of speakers since it is essentially available in English or French, languages they are not very conversant with. In this paper, I am examining how widespread CPE is, as well as the potential and capacity of the language in expressing local cultural, scientific and technical knowledge and how such knowledge could be captured in CPE. Data will be collected through participant observation, literary works of arts, local newspapers published in English and from Kouega’s (2008) dictionary on Cameroon Pidgin English. The data will be analysed using the Domain Analysis approach propounded by James Bradley (1980).

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