Pidgin camerounais
The language of the street and the market, right across the anglophone West
Family : English-based creole, part of the West African Pidgin English family
Speakers : About 12 million speakers according to Ethnologue (2017 figure); according to a 2017 study, it is the mother tongue of about 5% of Cameroonians, but around half the population speaks it in some form.
Also called : Kamtok, Cameroon Pidgin English, Wes Cos, Pidgin English
Where and by whom it is spoken
Cameroon Pidgin, or Kamtok (from "Cameroon talk"), is an English-based creole, close to the pidgins spoken along the West African coast. It dominates in the anglophone North-West and South-West regions, but also serves as a lingua franca in the francophone West and Littoral, especially in Douala. Its speakers clearly distinguish it from standard English, which they call "Grammar".
History and writing
Born as a contact language on the coast during the Atlantic slave trade, it predates English in Cameroon: the Baptist missionaries who arrived in 1845 had to learn it. Under German rule (1884-1914), it survived a ban and spread through the plantations, which drew labourers from all over the hinterland. It is written in the Latin alphabet; a Pidgin New Testament, "Gud Nyus fo ol Pipul", appeared in 2000.
Where to hear it today
- The language of markets and trade, especially in Douala, where the city's mix of peoples made it the language of business.
- A church language: a liturgical variety has been used by the Catholic Church for three-quarters of a century.
- The language of school playgrounds, campuses and political campaigns, now also making its way into spoken media, despite the University of Buea's "No Pidgin on Campus" campaigns.
A few words
- sabi
- To know.
- tchop
- To eat.
- waka
- To walk, or to work properly.
- wata
- Water (from English "water").
- Wes Cos
- The language's own name for itself, from "West Coast".
What sources disagree on
Speaker numbers vary widely between sources: Ethnologue gives 12 million, while Université Laval counts "at least two or three million". The exact beginnings of this English-based pidgin on the Cameroon coast remain obscure.