Kelen Ernesta Fonyuy
University of Bamenda, Bambili, Cameroon

Cameroon English and French - Pluricentricity in the context of multilingualism and nativisation

Key: Language contact, pluricentricity, nativsation

With a heterogeneous population of about twenty million, Cameroon has 280 living languages (Ethnologue:http://www.ethnologue.com/country/CM), and about 250 ethnic groups, but in the late 19th Century “scramble for Africa” colonial expansion, two European languages, English and French were transported and transplanted in Cameroon. As a linguistic outcome of languages in contact, two language categories, the exogenous and endogenous languages shaped the linguistic repertoire of most Cameroonians. These exogenous languages were English and French, but the indigenous tongues that spoke and used these languages were varied, having built their foreign language structure on predominantly ethnic language structures.
Today, French and English have been nativised in Cameroun to generate indigenous varieties such as Cameroon English (CamE) and its non-dominant varieties, Cameroon French (CamF) and its non-dominant varieties, endorsing pluricentricity in the French and English languages. While the processes of nativisation (Mbassi-Manga 1976a; Anchimbe 2012) of French and English in Cameroon evolve, pluricentricity in French and English could be systematically traced from CamE and CamF phonologies (Simo Bobda 1993, Biloa 2004), syntax (Mbangwana and Sala2009); morphology, and lexico-semantics (Kouega 2007).
The intricacies of the pluricentricity in Cameroon English and French are intriguing considering that there is a Cameroon Pidgin English (CamPE) (Menang 2004), which originally was a trade language, but today, although still regarded as an L language, it has a dual function as Cameroon’s lingua franca, and a creole to some Cameroonians. Social attitudes have been resistant to accept pluricentricity in Cameroon French, probably because the French believed in the superiority of French language and culture, which they promoted in the colonies, unlike the British and Germans, who were reluctant to institutionalise their languages in the Cameroon colony. This may explain why pidginisation in French (Echu 2006) is considered ongoing in Cameroon. There is also the conglomerate variety, Camfranglais (Chia and Gerbault 1992), a blend of French, English, Cameroon indigenous languages, and Cameroon Pidgin English, which all together give pluricentric value to the English and French spoken in contemporary Cameroon.