Cameroonian Pidgin English

Spoken in

• Creole languages

• Kamtok

Cpe

Wes

Kamtok (proper name:. Pidgin, English Cameroon Pidgin English, Cameroonian Pidgin / Creole or Kamtok ) is a creole language in Cameroon.

History

Already since the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade in the 15th century, various Portuguese -based pidgin spoken on the west coast of Africa probably. After Cameroon, the first Portuguese arrived earlier than 1472, when a Portuguese expedition led by Fernão do Pó, the island of Fernando Poo (now Bioko ) came off the coast of Cameroon. These languages ​​were used until the end of the 16th century as a lingua franca in trade with the locals.

It is not certain why the Portuguese lost on the West African coast at the time of impact. It is conceivable that English -based pidgins arose because the Portuguese began to collaborate with British Kaperern, which should ensure the communication with the local people on the West African coast. In this way, the inhabitants of the later Cameroon might have come with the first English words into contact. Definitively the situation changed, as the trade in West Africa was dominated from 1618 to the British. This led not only continuing the initiated by the Portuguese slave trade, but built from 1800 on the entire coast factories. From 1800 an English- based pidgin in Cameroon was already established.

It is believed that the Kamtok is in its present form strongly influenced by the Krio, a Creole language in Sierra Leone. Firstly, the UK distributor Pidgin brought with itself, which they had heard in Sierra Leone and learned. On the other hand founded Baptist missionaries from 1844 Christian settlements on the coast of Cameroon, including in 1845 by Alfred Saker, the settlement Victoria (now Limbe ). Freed slaves who had learned a pidgin in Sierra Leone and came across Nigeria to Cameroon, settled first in this mission -ups on. The variety of them enjoyed spoken at that time a great reputation in the area.

During the period of German colonial rule in German - Cameroon (1884-1914) tried the German colonial administration to push back the spread on the coast Kamtok and instead to establish German as a lingua franca. Soon realized the administration that this goal can not be achieved in Cameroon and Kamtok for communication with the local people was essential. In German plantations could be the people working there, which came from different parts of the country and spoke different indigenous languages ​​, communicate only with the help of Kamtok. In this way, and because of the ministry of the Baptist missionaries, who used Kamtok the spread of Christianity to Kamtok could spread to the Cameroon hinterland.

After the First World War, Cameroon was under British and French League of Nations mandate after the Second World War under British or French trusteeship. In British Cameroon to Kamtok could spread unhindered in addition to the official language English and took many influences from English to. In the French- administered part of the country Kamtok had less significance, but was able to survive and retained more of its original characteristics at.

Current situation

Today Kamtok is spoken by about 50 % of the population of the country as a second language and of a growing number of people as a first language. Although the main distribution area of Kamtok are still the two Anglophone provinces of South - West and North- West, also a large part of the population of the neighboring provinces, and many residents of large cities throughout the country of the language are powerful. The years of partition of the country, however, is still reflects in the fact that Kamtok distinction must be made primarily in two major varieties, one anglophone and one francophone variety.

Especially in the Anglophone part of the country to learn more and more children Kamtok as a single or first language, so that disclosures in 2003 in a survey 42 % of respondents in Buea and 36 % of respondents in Bamenda this language as their mother tongue. But even in the francophone part of the country the language has more native speakers, as reported for example in the same survey 30% of respondents in Yaounde Kamtok as a first language at.

As Kamtok Creole is spoken by the public sector, despite stigma in almost all areas of public life: in families, among friends, in trade, in the workplace, in churches and schools. Also found in the media ( television, radio and Internet ) as well as in the literature, the language used more and more.