In the west of Cameroon the main language spoken is Pidgin, although Cameroonian Pidgin English (CPE) does not have official status like English, it is spoken widely in this part of the country. There is a Pidgin Bible, you'll hear it in the bars, in the taxis and everywhere you go because Pidgin is the language of the street.
It's a strange language in your ears at first, you hear a lot of english words so you feel like you can understand a lot, it's not indesiferable. But they speak it so fast and with such fluidity that the words flow into one so it's easy to lose track, then suddenly a word like 'white man' will pop up and you realise that yes, they have been talking about you. My response to any Pidgin question posed is usually, 'I di speak Pidgin small small'. You don't need to be a hieroglyphics code-breaker like Howard Carter to work out what that means.
Most of the english verbs are used with the adition of 'am' on the end meaning 'it'. So you'll hear things like 'take-am' or 'leave-am'. My favoriye use of the verbs is for the future tense though. If you wanted to say 'i'm going to go' you'd say in Pidgin - 'I di go go'.
Good words like 'Mimbo' meaning drink and 'chop' which means eat will be heard regularly as everyone likes to chop and everyone is partial to a mimbo.
There are also a lot of Portuguese words prevelant in the language from the times of the first settlers to arrive at the ports. Words like 'Piqueno' became 'Pikin' in Pidgin meaning child. My favourite word is 'palava' meaning trouble.
The language gets a bit of bad rap and not everybody accepts the language despite it having its own syntax and grammatical rules. It is blamed for slipping academic standards and the poor level of english pronunciation amongst some people. In Yaounde, a francophone area for example, i encountered a lot of people who regard it with a low self image.
I think it's cool as i realise it gives the people a sense of identity and pride, however it's obviously essential to learn english as it is the link to many other countries. And i can't hate a language which has provided me with one of the funniest prases i've ever heard....
Can i feel your power?
Meaning, Can i feel your muscles, sir?
2 comments:
For some very interesting discussions on Cameroonian Pidgin English, check out this link:
http://www.dibussi.com/language_identity/index.html
Thanks for sharing your views on the importance and evolution of Pidgin English in Cameroon today. May I point out that Biblical Pidgin is rarely used in daily parlance in Cameroon today. Expressions such as "jorup" used in the Bible in reference to Christ's resurrection was used in the past to mean 'rise from sleep' or 'wake up'. Today, people will say: 'wake up. People in the Littoral Province continue to cling onto this expression. You'd hear people in Douala say: you dong jorup?" meaning 'good morning'.
Pidgin continues to borrow from other languages that co-exist with it in a plurilingual context. For instance, it is common in Cameroon to hear expressions such as: "This man short like kajere" "Kajere" is a Hausa word for 'short person'. You will also hear expressions like:: In the same vein, 'This man di comporte' is a hybrid. 'Comporte' comes from the French verb 'se comporter' meaning to behave well or take onself seriously.
Camtok like other global pidgins continues to live and to evolve with the passage of time.
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