The colonial doctrine and postcolonial mentality

Through colonialism the political, economic and social lives of the colonised nations were invaded, transformed, controlled and shaped by the colonisers; their worldviews, cultures and languages were eroded and subjected to an inferior position; their minds and cosmic vision were upset and they were finally made to understand that everything of theirs was inferior. The colonial mentality has preoccupied the minds of many postcolonial people, as they tend to see everything that reflects their contextual or ecological setting as inferior. Bokamba (Reference Bokamba and Anchimbe2007: 41) refers to this type of inferiority complex as a ‘ukolonia’ tendency, which has made many postcolonial subjects to place their local output and potentials in an inferior position in favour of what is rooted in Western constructs. Many people in postcolonial contexts now perceive their own culture and indigenous languages with an inferiority complex and tend to think that colonial languages are the only media through which effective communication can take place. Some people are even ready to negotiate their own identity to embrace one that strongly links them to the Western world. These types of tendencies are certainly some of the aftermaths of colonial indoctrination, which greatly reshaped and reconditioned the thinking of the colonised population. Bokamba (Reference Bokamba and Anchimbe2007: 27f) and Anchimbe (Reference Anchimbe and Anchimbe2007: 9) point out that in most postcolonial settings, people are still identified with colonial languages as ‘Anglophone’, ‘Francophone’ and ‘Lusophone’ and not as ‘Bantuphone’, ‘Swahiliphone’ and ‘Mandingphone’, because they believe that their dreams must necessarily be built on Western constructs in order to be meaningful. It is not surprising that in postcolonial Cameroon, for instance, indigenous languages and Kamtok, languages that symbolise the ecology and culture of Cameroon, are treated with contempt and indignation, but English and other colonial linguistic legacies, such as French, are promoted with passion, as shall be seen in the following section.

Localising English and globalising Kamtok

Unlike Kamtok, English, a global language and one of the colonial linguistic legacies, is well rooted in Cameroon and is gaining ground almost on a daily basis. Besides the fact that its status as one of the official languages of Cameroon is well defined in the country's Constitution, it is taught in every French and English-speaking school in the country at all the educational levels. Interestingly, the goal is not to teach indigenised Cameroon English, but rather the variety spoken in Britain and the United States, the original seats of the language. It is for this reason that Bobda (Reference Bobda2002: v) maintains that

The above statements clearly indicate that the target in Cameroon is not just English per se; but, interestingly, Inner Circle English is the ultimate goal, even though this goal is hardly ever achieved, as reported in previous investigations (see, for instance, Bobda, Reference Bobda1991, Reference Bobda1994; Kouega, Reference Kouega2006; Ngefac, Reference Ngefac2008, forthcoming; and Mbangwana and Sala, Reference Mbangwana2009).

The passion to promote and localise English is also seen in the fact that most research works on this language are carried out by local researchers (see Masanga, 1983; Mbangwana, 1987; Bobda, Reference Bobda1991, 1993, Reference Bobda1994, Reference Bobda2002; Kouega; Anchimbe, Reference Anchimbe2006, Ngefac, Reference Ngefac2008; Mbangwana and Sala, Reference Mbangwana2009, etc.).

Unlike English, which has witnessed significant interest from local scholars, most of the scholarly facts about Kamtok have surfaced through the efforts of foreign researchers and very few local scholars find it logical to study a language that is significantly rooted in local realities. As far as this investigation could reveal, there are only a handful of Cameroonian researchers who are really interested in the description of Kamtok as a language in its own right and this interest is only a recent development. It is no exaggeration to claim that before 1990 there were fewer than five research works on this language from local researchers and this research could only identify Menang (Reference Menang1979), Ngome (Reference Ngome1986), and Mbangwana (1983) as research works from local scholars available before 1990, excluding evangelical documents written to facilitate priestly missions. Although the interest from local scholars on this language increased after 1990 (see, for instance, Tsende, 1993; Ayafor, Reference Ayafor1996, Reference Ayafor and Kortmann2004, Reference Ayafor and Chia2006; Leoue, Reference Leoue1996; Alobwede, Reference Alobwede1998; Ngefac and Sala, 2006; Neba et al., Reference Neba, Chibaka and Atindogbe2006; Ngefac, Reference Ngefac2009 and Sala, 2009), the interest is still below expectation as compared to the numerous works on the language produced by foreign scholars (see, for instance, Schneider, Reference Schneider1960, Reference Schneider1966, Reference Schneider1967; Dwyer, Reference Dwyer1966; Todd, Reference Todd1969, Reference Todd1971, Reference Todd and Görlach1986, Reference Todd1979, Reference Todd1991; Féral, Reference de Féral1978, Reference de Féral1980, Reference de Féral1989; Bellama et al., Reference Bellama1983; and Schröder, Reference Schröder and Lucko2003a & b). This shows that this Cameroonian language is, paradoxically, more of interest to foreign scholars than to local researchers. Is it what Bokamba (Reference Bokamba and Anchimbe2007) refers to as a ‘ukolonia’ tendency?

Unlike English, Kamtok has witnessed no educational efforts to promote it. In spite of the fact that the language carries the ecology and identity of Cameroon and tends to be the only Cameroonian language that transcends ethnic, professional, educational and other social boundaries, it is not taught in any of the Cameroonian schools. On the contrary, there are serious threats to ban it. Surprisingly, the only English-speaking university in the country, known as the University of Buea, displays all types of provocative signboards that openly ban the use of this language on the campus, simply because the promotion and localisation of English is a priority.

The following are some of the signboards that are displayed on the campus of this university:

• • English is the password, not pidgin

• • Pidgin is taking a heavy toll on your English; shun it

• • No Pidgin on Campus, please!

• • If you speak pidgin, you will write pidgin

• • Be my friend. Speak English

• • Commonwealth speak English not pidgin

It is difficult to understand why there is so much passion about the promotion of English to the point that an official ban is placed on one of the most spoken languages in the country, which is also a language that significantly defines the Cameroonian identity.

One of the ways through which Kamtok has been relegated to the background is the lack of political effort to standardise it. Is it not a paradox that a language that has served communicative needs in the country for more than 500 years (see Kouega, Reference Kouega2008) has neither been standardised nor given an official recognition? The importance of any language lies in its communicative potential. And Kamtok has been identified in various research works as one of the most widely spoken languages in the country and a language that transcends most ethnic, educational, religious, and social boundaries. It is used in varying degrees in the civil service, in court, on radio and TV, in records, in advertising, in conversations among friends, colleagues and relatives, in teacher-student interaction outside the classroom, in patient-doctor interaction, in large scale business transaction, in petty trades, literature and performing arts, in religion, in political campaigns and in traffic police-coach driver interaction (Chumbow and Bobda, Reference Chumbow, Bobda, Fishman, Conrad and Rubal-Lopez1996: 420 and Schröder, 2003: 181). The use of the language in English-speaking towns in Cameroon needs no special emphasis, given that there are already as high as 36.2 % and 42.3 % of native speakers in some of the Cameroonian towns (see Schröder, 2003: 85). But the use of the language in French-speaking towns tends to be in high competition with French, as revealed in Table 1.

Table 1: Percentage of Kamtok speakers in French-speaking towns in Cameroon

(Koenig et al., 1983)

What explains the fact that a language that has existed in the country for more than 500 years, is already serving as the mother tongue of many Cameroonians, is being used in many domains of life and is even competing with French in French-speaking towns cannot be standardised? The fact that the issue of orthography for the language is a hot debate only now (see Sala, Reference Sala2009b and Ngefac, manuscript) shows that its standardisation agenda is still a dream.

The misrepresentation of the developmental status of Kamtok by both scholars and laypeople is one of the ways through which the real dynamics of this language have been concealed from the global and intellectual community. The language has been given all types of appellations and most of these appellations do not capture the real developmental stage of the language. Anchimbe (Reference Anchimbe2006: 33) maintains that the language is ‘taken for a debased, low-class medium of communication’. Similarly, some see it as the substandard variety of Cameroon English (see Ubanako, Reference Ubanako2008); others simply call it Pidgin English (see Alobwede, Reference Alobwede1998; Ngefac and Sala, 2006; Sala and Ngefac, 2006; Kouega, Reference Kouega2008 and Sala, 2009); some call it Kamtok (see Ngome, Reference Ngome1986; Todd, Reference Todd1990; Mbangwana, 1991; and Ayafor, Reference Ayafor1996, Reference Ayafor and Chia2006). Some laypeople with no linguistic and creolistic interests perceive the language rather as bush English or the code of communication for uneducated people. Whatever appellation has been given so far to this language, the truth is that the language is neither a substandard variety of Cameroon English nor bush English nor a jargon nor a pidgin as previously thought. As early as 1960, that is 50 years ago, Gilbert Schneider wrote the first dictionary of the language and called it ‘Cameroons creole Dictionary’ (Schneider, Reference Schneider1960). If the language was perceived in 1960 as a creole, there is no logic why, 50 years after, the same language should still be regarded as a jargon or a pidgin. In a recent study (see Ngefac, manuscript), it is demonstrated that this language displays most, if not all, characteristics of a creole and more interesting is the fact that the variety spoken in the Southwest and Northwest English-speaking regions is already experiencing a postcreole continuum, because of its constant contact with English, the superstrate language. As concerns its creolistic traits, sociolinguistically, it is spoken as an L1 by a significant proportion of its speakers (see Koenig et al., 1983; Schröder, 2003 and Neba et al., Reference Neba, Chibaka and Atindogbe2006) and it serves as the main language of communication for the Anglophone speech community. Structurally, it displays an SVO word order as is the case with many creoles described in the literature. For instance, the following Kamtok sentences taken from different works on the language display an SVO word order (also see Ngefac, manuscript):

1. a) Peta de chop rais ‘Peter is eating rice’ (Kouega, Reference Kouega2008: 46)

2. b) i bin sén i másínja. ‘He sent his messenger’ (Schneider, Reference Schneider1966: 96)

3. c) àláta bin kárí dát ring. ‘The rat carried the ring’ (Schneider, Reference Schneider1966: 125)

4. d) a don bai som fain plànti ‘I've just bought some nice plantains’ (Todd, Reference Todd1973: 5)

In addition to the SVO word order it displays, there are systematic and well established preverbal particles that express different grammatical categories such as tense and aspect observable in other creoles around the world. Such descriptive works as Schneider, Reference Schneider1966; Todd, Reference Todd1969, Reference Todd1991; Mbassi-Manga, Reference Mbassi-Manga1973; Féral, Reference de Féral1989; Ayafor, Reference Ayafor2000 and Schröder, Reference Schröder and Lucko2003a have identified the preverbal particles “go” as the future marker, “bin” as the past tense marker, “di” as the progressive or imperfective aspect marker, and “don” as the perfective aspect marker that indicates a completed action. The preverbal particle “neba” has also been identified as a perfective aspect that marks negation. Considering therefore the sociolinguistic and structural aspects of this language, calling it a pidgin or a jargon or bush English or the substandard variety of Cameroon English is concealing the status of this language as a creole from the intellectual and global community.