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| Cameroon Pidgin English | |
|---|---|
| Kamtok | |
| Wes Cos | |
| Native to | Cameroon |
| Region | Northwest Region, Southwest Region |
| Speakers | 12 million (2017)[1] |
English Creole
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wes |
| Glottolog | came1254 |
| Linguasphere | 52-ABB-bg |
_in_Cameroon.svg) Distribution of Kamtok | |
Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole (Cameroon Pidgin: Wes Cos, from West Coast), is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok (from 'Cameroon-talk'). It is primarily spoken in the North West and South West English speaking regions.[2] Cameroonian Pidgin English is an English-based creole language. Approximately 5% of Cameroonians are native speakers of the language, while an estimated 50% of the population speak it in some form.[3]
The terms "Cameroonian Pidgin", "Cameroonian Pidgin English", "Cameroonian Creole", and "Kamtok" are synonyms for what Cameroonians call Cameroon Pidgin English. Several speakers of Cameroonian pidgin refer to Standard English as "Grammar", and recognize the difference between the two. It is a variety of West African Pidgin Englishes spoken along the coast from Ghana to Cameroon. It is a vehicular language that has been in active use in the country for over 200 years. It came into being in the Slave Trade Years (1440 to early 1800s).[4] It preceded English in Cameroon: the first Baptist missionaries who arrived in Cameroon in 1845 and introduced formal education in English, had to learn Pidgin. A few decades later during the German annexation period (1884–1914), pidgin resisted a German ban. It took flight when it became a makeshift language used in German plantations and undertakings by forced labourers who were drawn from the hinterland and who spoke different indigenous languages. With time it passed into use in the market place, and was adopted by Baptist missionaries as the language of their evangelical crusade. For many years, it has been used on school playgrounds and campuses and in political campaigns, and today it is forcing its way into spoken media.
- ^ Cameroon Pidgin English at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Anchimbe, Eric A. "Multilingual backgrounds and the identity issue in Cameroon." Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca" Julio de Urquijo" 39.2 (2011): 33–48.
- ^ Ozón, Gabriel; Ayafor, Miriam; Green, Melanie; Fitzgerald, Sarah (2017). "The spoken corpus of Cameroon Pidgin English". World Englishes. 36 (3): 427–447. doi:10.1111/weng.12280. ISSN 0883-2919.
- ^ Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade Picador, London, 1997.
