The Unifying Aspects of Cultures

SECTION:

Borrowing and Translation at the Crossroads of Language and Culture Contact

Jean-Paul Kouega (University of Yaounde I, Cameroon)
Influence of Contacts between Western and African Cultures on English in Cameroon

This paper discusses the reflections on English of the contacts between British, French and African cultures in Cameroon. Firstly, the contact between English and Cameroon indigenous languages resulted in the creation of a new language called Pidgin, which was used for out-group communication purposes. The co-habitation between Pidgin and English on the one hand and between English and French on the other hand revealed a number of realities which were specific to each of these languages and cultures. For the English language to express some of these realities, it had to undergo a number of adjustments. These adjustments manifest themselves today in the form of borrowing, which subsumes direct loan, loan translation and loan blend. Semantically, French loans generally refer to government procedural practices whereas Pidgin loans refer to traditional practices. The lexical items thus created have proved to be a reliable tool for effective and quick communication among Cameroonians; these items, however, need to be codified for intelligibility to be preserved in a global context.

THE UNIFYING ASPECTS OF CULTURES

INST