Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T09:52:24.248Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Grammatical Hybridity in Camfranglais?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2021

By
Roland Kießling
Edited by
Rajend Mesthrie ,
Ellen Hurst-Harosh  and
Heather Brookes
Rajend Mesthrie
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Ellen Hurst-Harosh
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Heather Brookes
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses some grammatical features of 'African urban youth languages', focusing on Camfranglais in Cameroonian cities such as Yaoundé and Douala. While anti-languages have been characterised as parasitic styles of speaking that graft onto the grammar of another language, developing an ephemeral emblematic lexicon but little or no grammatical structures of their own, Camfranglais stands out in that its grammatical features cannot be entirely reduced to a (Standard) French matrix. Rather, it presents various phonological, morphological and syntactical properties mostly transferred from Cameroonian Pidgin English and its Bantoid substrate languages, most probably via a spectrum of varieties of Cameroonian French. However, as long as the distribution of these features along the continuum Camfranglais–Cameroonian Pidgin English–second-language varieties of French (and English) remains unclear, it cannot be decided whether Camfranglais has indeed developed a hybrid grammar peculiar to itself. On the functional level, Camfranglais retains some typical anti-language characteristics with a tendency to expand as a style of speaking that indexes positive values such as integration, solidarity, progressiveness and a cosmopolitan Cameroonian identity.

Keywords

BantoidCamfranglaisCameroonian Pidgin EnglishFrenchMbokoanti-languageargothybriditymorphosyntaxstylecttoneurban youthverb serialisation
Type
Chapter
Information
Youth Language Practices and Urban Language Contact in Africa , pp. 115 - 140
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akumbu, Pius W. and Chibaka, Evelyn Fogwe. (2012). A Pedagogic Grammar of Babanki – A Grassfields Language of Northwest Cameroon. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Anchimbe, Eric A. (2006a). Cameroon English – Authenticity, Ecology and Evolution. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Anchimbe, Eric A. (2006b). Functional seclusion and the future of indigenous languages in Africa: the case of Cameroon. In Mugane, J., Hutchinson, J. P. and Worman, D. E. (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 94–103.Google Scholar
Annexe: Camfranglais. (2019). https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexe:CamfranglaisGoogle Scholar
Ayuninjam, Funwi F. (1998). A Reference Grammar of Mbili. Lanham: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Biloa, Edmond. (1999). Structure phrastique du camfranglais. In Echu, G. and Grundstrom, A. W. (eds.), Bilinguisme Officiel et Communication Linguistique au Cameroun. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 147–174.Google Scholar
Biloa, Edmond. (2003). La Langue française au Cameroun. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Biloa, Edmond. (2008a). Analyse morphosyntaxique. In Ntsobé, A.-M., Biloa, E. and Echu, G. (eds.), Le Camfranglais: Quel parlure? Etude Linguistique et Sociolinguistique. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 93–132.Google Scholar
Biloa, Edmond. (2008b). Analyse phonologique. In Ntsobé, A.-M., Biloa, E. and Echu, G. (Eds.), Le Camfranglais: Quel parlure? Etude Linguistique et Sociolinguistique. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 63–68.Google Scholar
Biloa, Edmond. (2012). Des traits syntaxiques et morphosyntaxiques des pratiques du français au Cameroun. Le français en Afrique, 27, pp. 122–136.Google Scholar
Bitja’a Kody, Zachée Denis. (1999). Problématique de la cohabitation des langues. In Mendo Zé, G. (ed.), Le Français Langue Africaine: Enjeux et Atouts Pour la Francophonie. Paris: Publisud, pp. 80–95.Google Scholar
Boum Ndongo-Semengue, Marie Anne and Sadembouo, Etienne. (1999). L’atlas linguistique du Cameroun: les langues nationales et leur gestion. In Mendo Zé, G. (ed.), Le Français Langue Africaine: Enjeux et Atouts Pour la Francophonie. Paris: Publisud, pp. 67–79.Google Scholar
Breton, Roland and Fohtung, Bikia. (1991). Atlas Administratif des Langues Nationales du Cameroun. Yaoundé and Paris: Centre de recherches et d’etudes anthropologiques.Google Scholar
Castells, Manuel. (1997). The Power of Identity. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chia, Emmanuel. (1990). The new speech forms of rapidly growing city: Pidgin French and Camfranglais in Yaounde. Annales de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université de Yaoundé, 6, pp. 102–127.Google Scholar
Chia, Emmanuel. (1992). Les langues des marchés au Cameroun. In: Calvet, Louis Jean (ed.), Les langues des marchés en Afrique. Aix-en-Provence: Institut d’Études Créoles et Francophones, pp. 47–63.Google Scholar
Chia, Emmanuel and Gerbault, Jacqueline. (1990). Les nouveaux parlers urbains: le cas de Yaoundé. In Gouaini, E. and Thiam, N. (ed.), Actes du Colloque International des Langues et des Villes. Paris and Dakar: ACCT and Didier Erudition, pp. 263–278.Google Scholar
de Féral, Carole. (1989). Pidgin-English du Cameroun. Description Linguistique et Sociolinguistique. Paris: Peeters/Selaf.Google Scholar
de Féral, Carole. (1994). Appropriation du français dans le sud du Cameroun. Langue française, 104, pp. 37–48.Google Scholar
de Féral, Carole. (1997). Français orale et camfranglais dans le Sud Cameroun. In Queffélec, A. (ed.), Alternances Codiques et Français Parlée en Afrique. Aix-en-Provence: PUF, pp. 205–212.Google Scholar
de Féral, Carole. (2005). Étudier le camfranglais: recueil de données et transcription. Deuxième texte d’orientation de l’équipe ‘Français identitaires des jeunes en Afrique’. www.unice.fr/bcl/ofcaf/21/Camfranglais.pdfGoogle Scholar
de Féral, Carole. (2006). Décrire un ‘parler jeune’: le cas du Camfranglais (Cameroun). Le français en Afrique, 21, pp. 257–265.Google Scholar
de Féral, Carole. (2010). From ‘Francais makro’ to ‘Camfranglais’: does a name make a language? Unpublished paper read at Panel #2, VAD Conference in Mainz, Germany, 10 April 2010.Google Scholar
Eble, Connie. (2004). Slang and Antilanguages/Slang und Argot. In Ammon, U., Dittmar, N., Mattheier, K. J. and Trudgill, P. (eds.), Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, Volume 1. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 262–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Echu, George. (1999a). Genèse et evolution du bilinguisme officiel au Cameroun. In Echu, G. and Grundstrom, A. W. (eds.), Official Bilingualism and Linguistic Communication in Cameroon. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 3–13.Google Scholar
Echu, George. (1999b). Le bilinguisme officiel au Cameroun: critique et perspectives. In Echu, G. and Grundstrom, A. W. (eds.), Official Bilingualism and Linguistic Communication in Cameroon. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 189–201.Google Scholar
Echu, George. (2008a). Description sociolinguistique du camfranglais. In Ntsobé, A.-.M, Biloa, E. and Echu, G. (eds.), Le Camfranglais: Quel parlure? Etude Linguistique et Sociolinguistique. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 41–61.Google Scholar
Echu, George. (2008b). Lexique du camfranglais. In Ntsobé, A.-M., Biloa, E. and Echu, G. (eds.), Le Camfranglais: Quel parlure? Etude Linguistique et Sociolinguistique. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 69–91.Google Scholar
Echu, George and Grundstrom, Allan W. (1999). Preface/Préface. In Echu, G. and Grundstrom, A. W. (eds.), Official Bilingualism and Linguistic Communication in Cameroon. New York: Peter Lang, pp. xix–xx.Google Scholar
Essono, Jean-J. Marie. (1992). Les créations lexicales en français d’Afrique. Les cas du Cameroun. In Queffélec, A. (ed.), Alternances Codiques et Français Parlé en Afrique. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, pp. 189–195.Google Scholar
Essono, Jean-J. Marie. (1997). Le camfranglais: un code excentrique, une appropriation vernaculaire du français. In Frey, C. and Latin, D. (eds.), Le Corpus Lexicographique. Louvain-la-Neuve: Duculot, pp. 381–396.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Rosalie and Slabbert, Sarah. (1997). ‘I’ll meet you halfway with language’ – codeswitching within a South African urban context. In Pütz, M. (ed.), Language Choices: Conditions, Constraints, and Consequences. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 381–421.Google Scholar
Franqueville, André. (1984). Yaoundé: Construire une Capitale. Paris: Editions de l’Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer (ORSTOM).Google Scholar
Fosso, M. (1999). Le Camfranglais: une praxéogenie complexe et iconoclaste. In Mendo Zé, G. (ed.), Le Français Langue Africaine: Enjeux et Atouts Pour la Francophonie. Paris: Publisud, pp. 178–194.Google Scholar
Fouda, Mercédès. (2001). Je Parle Camerounais. Pour un Renouveau Francofaune. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Fransen, Margo A. E. (1995). A Grassfields Bantu Language: Spoken in the North-West Province of Cameroon. Unpublished PhD thesis, Free University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. (1976). Anti-languages. American Anthropologist, 78(3), pp. 570–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. (1978). Language as a Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Hecker, Anne. (2009). Das Camfranglais: Untersuchungen zur in Kamerun gesprochenen Varietät des Französischen. Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr Müller.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. (1977). Vertical and horizontal communication in Africa. Afrika Spectrum, 77, pp. 231–238.Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie. (1980). Le groupe Noun. In Bouquiaux, L. (ed.), L’Expansion Bantou I. Paris: SELAF, pp. 143–163.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry. (1972). A phonological study of Fe’fe’-Bamileke. Studies in African Linguistics, Supplement 4.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry. (1981). Noni Grammatical Structure. Los Angeles, CA: Department of Linguistics UCLA.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry, Voeltz, Erhard and Tchokokam, Georges. (1970). Noun class levelling in Bamileke. Studies in African Linguistics, 1, pp. 185–209.Google Scholar
Kamdem, Hector F. (2013). ‘C’est le ndem que tu veux voir????’: De la constitution phrastique aux valeurs discursives du ‘ask’ en camfranglais au Cameroun. Bayreuth: MS.Google Scholar
Kamdem, Hector F. (2015). A Dictionary of Camfranglais. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland. (2005). Bàk mwà mè dó – Camfranglais in Cameroon. Lingua Posnaniensis, 47, pp. 87–107.Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland. (2010). Focalisation and defocalisation in Isu. In Fiedler, I. and Schwarz, A. (eds.), The Expression of Information Structure. A Documentation of its Diversity across Africa. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp. 145–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kießling, Roland. (2011). Verbal Serialisation in Isu (West Ring), a Grassfields Bantu Language of Cameroon. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland. (2014). Hybrid juvenile discourse in Cameroon. In Agnihotri, R. K., Benthien, C. and Oranskaia, T. (eds.), ‘Impure Languages’. Linguistic and Literary Hybridity in Contemporary Cultures. Delhi: Orient Blackswan [Penguin].Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland and Mous, Maarten. (2004). Urban youth languages in Africa. Anthropological Linguistics, 46(3), pp. 303–341.Google Scholar
Kouega, Jean-Paul. (1999). Forty years of official bilingualism in Cameroon. English Today, 15(4), pp. 38–43.Google Scholar
Kouega, Jean-Paul. (2003a). Camfranglais: a novel slang in Cameroon schools. English Today, 19(2), pp. 23–29.Google Scholar
Kouega, Jean-Paul. (2003b). Word formative processes in Camfranglais. World Englishes, 22(4), pp. 511–538.Google Scholar
Kouega, Jean-Paul. (2007). The language situation in Cameroon. CILP (Current Issues in Language Planning), 8(1), pp. 3–94.Google Scholar
Kouega, Jean-Paul. (2008). A Dictionary of Cameroon Pidgin English Usage: Pronunciation, Grammar and Vocabulary. Munich: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Kouega, Jean-Paul. (2013). Camfranglais: A Glossary of Common Words, Phrases and Usages. Munich: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, Simons, Gary F. and Fennig, Charles D. (eds.). (2015). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 17th ed. Dallas, TX: SIL International. www.ethnologue.com.Google Scholar
Lobé Ewane, Michel. (1989). Cameroun: le camfranglais. Diagonales, 10, pp. 33–34.Google Scholar
Mbah-Onana, Marie. (1997). Le camfranglais, dialecte moderne du Cameroun, genèse et manifestations. In Ecritures VII: Le Regard de l’autre. Afrique-Europe au XXe siècle. Yaoundé: Editions CLE, pp. 29–37.Google Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol. (2002). Contact Linguistics. Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nchare, Abdoulaye Laziz. (2009). The Morphosyntax of Camfranglais and the Matrix Language Frame Hypothesis. New York: New York University.Google Scholar
Nissim, Gabriel. (1981). Le Bamileke-ghomálá’ (Parler de Bandjoun, Cameroun): Phonologie, Morphologie Nominale, comparison avec des Parlers Coisins. Paris: SELAF.Google Scholar
Ntsobé, André-Marie, Biloa, Edmund and Echu, George (eds.). (2008). Le Camfranglais: Quelle Parlure? Étude Linguistique et Sociolinguistique. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Queffélec, Ambroise. (2006). Restructurations morphosyntaxiques en français populaire camerounais: l’expression des modalités injonctives et interrogatives dans le discours rapport. Le français en Afrique, 21, pp. 267–280.Google Scholar
Reh, Mechthild and Heine, Bernd. (1982). Sprachpolitik in Afrika. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar
Rosendal, Tove. (2008). Multilingual Cameroon: Policy, Practice, Problems and Solutions. Gothenburg Africana Informal Series No. 7. Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Sala, Bonaventure M. (2012). Reduplication in Cameroon Pidgin English: formal and functional perspectives. In Anchimbe, E. A. (ed.), Language Contact in a Postcolonial Setting. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, pp. 191–214.Google Scholar
Schneider, Gilbert D. (1966). West African Pidgin-English. A Descriptive Linguistic Analysis with Texts and Glossary from the Cameroon Area. Athens: Ohio University.Google Scholar
Schröder, Anne. (2007). Camfranglais: a language with several (sur)faces and important sociolinguistic functions. In Bartels, A. and Wiemann, E. (eds.), Global Fragments. (Dis)Orientation in the New World Order. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 281–298.Google Scholar
Stein-Kanjora, Gardy. (2008). ‘Parler comme ça, c’est vachement cool!’ or how dynamic language loyalty can overcome ‘resistance from above’. Sociologus, 58(2), pp. 117–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein-Kanjora, Gardy. (2013). The Power to Exclude? A Sociolinguistic Study of Gender-Based Differences in Exposure to and Usage of Camfranglais in Cameroon. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
Stöckle, Johannes and Tischhauser, Georg. (1993). Mungaka (Bali) Dictionary. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Tamanji, Pius N. (2009). A Descriptive Grammar of Bafut. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Tande, Dibussi. (2006). University of Buea’s Anti-Pidgin Campaign in Pictures [Blog]. www.dibussi.com/2006/09/ubs_antipidgin_.htmlGoogle Scholar
Tchokothe, Rémi Armand. (2015). Camfranglais at the Challenge Camerounais. Paper presented at the WOCAL 8, 21–24 August, Kyoto, Japan.Google Scholar
Telep, Suzie. (2014). Le camfranglais sur Internet : pratiques et représentations. Le Français en Afrique, Réseau des Observatoires du Français Contemporain en Afrique. Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis. https://hal-univ-paris.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01440317/Google Scholar
Tiayon-Lekobou, Charles. (1985). Camspeak: A Speech Reality in Cameroon. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Yaoundé.Google Scholar
Tiewa Ngninzégha, Kathrin. (2008). Stadtsprachen im südlichen Kamerun. Eine linguistische und soziolinguistische Darstellung der Varietäten Cameroonian Pidgin English und Camfranglais. Unpublished MA thesis, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.Google Scholar
Todd, Loreto. (1985). Lexical patterning in Cameroon Pidgin and Tok Pisin. In Hancock, I. F. (ed.), Diversity and Development of English-Related Creoles. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma, pp. 116–133.Google Scholar
Vakunta, Peter W. (2007). On translating Camfranglais and other Camerounismes. Translation Review, 73, pp. 31–37.Google Scholar
van Staden, Miriam and Reesink, Ger. (n.d.). A Functional Approach to Serial Verb Constructions. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Watters, John. (1979). Focus in Aghem: a study of its formal correlates and typology. In Hyman, L. (ed.), Aghem Grammatical Structure with Special Reference to Noun Classes, Tense-Aspect and Focus Marking. Los Angeles: University of Southern California, pp. 137–197.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×