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Review: Camfranglais, a Glossary of Common Words, Phrases and Usages by Jean-Paul Kouega (Muenchem: Lincom Europa, 2013) 78 Euro. 323 pp.
Kouega's seminal work Camfranglais, A Glossary of Common Words, Phrases and Usages is a succinct study of the emergence and structure of a new linguistic code in Cameroon-Camfranglais. The book has two partitions. Part One sheds light on the sociolinguistic and linguistic structures of Camfranglais. In Part Two, the author provides readers with a lexical inventory of words and expressions that have come to be considered the functional vocabulary of Camfranglais speakers. Readers who have little or no acquaintance with the Republic of Cameroon many wonder what gave birth to this new urban lingo. Kouega, himself, defines Camfranglais as "a composite language variant, a type of pidgin that blends in the same speech act linguistic elements drawn first from French and secondly from English, Pidgin English and other widespread languages in Cameroon" (15). He further notes that Camfranglais was purposefully developed by secondary school students in a bid to freely communicate among themselves to the exclusion of non-initiates. Mbangwana observes that recourse to Camfranglais is triggered by the need for these youngsters to "veil many of their likes and dislikes, many of their ambitions and fears (quoted in Kouega, 2013, p. 9). The origin of the term 'Camfranglais' is attributed to Professor Ze Amvela who commented in the foot-notes of a paper he presented in 1989 as follows: "'Camfranglais' is used here as a cover term to describe what has been called 'Franglais', 'Pidgin French', 'Majunga Talk', 'Camspeak'" (quoted in Kouega, 2013, p.17).
The composite nature of Camfranglais stems from the fact that Cameroon is an ex-colony of France and Great Britain. Official bilingualism (English and French) is, therefore, one of the legacies bequeathed by these ex-colonial powers. Over and above, 250 odd indigenous languages co-exist with these European languages. Camfranglais is an enigmatic hotchpotch developed from the linguistic plurality that distinguishes Cameroon from other nations. To the older generation of Cameroonians, Camfranglais remains a mind-boggling linguistic conundrum whose evolution has to be watched closely.
Speakers of Camfranglais make a deliberate attempt to disguise the mes- sages they convey in a speech act as seen in the excerpt below: "Il y a la galère...