Why does cameroon speak english

This vote was prompted by a British report that insisted its former territory would not survive economically on its own. Southern Cameroonians wanted nothing more to do with Nigeria. So they elected to unite in a new federation with Cameroun Republic. It was supposed to be a partnership of equals, a notion reinforced by bilateral negotiations that had started before the vote. These negotiations were concluded at the Foumban Conference in July The general view after the conference was that the delegation from the Cameroun Republic, accompanied by French advisers, got virtually everything they wanted.

The Anglophones, who received none of the support promised by the British or the UN, were effectively sidelined. So the new federation was born, but it was never a happy union. The regions were centrally governed but neither of the two presidents since unification have spoken nor understood English. The incumbent, Paul Biya, reads English with difficulty. Since then Anglophones have pushed for autonomy. This call is actually supported in a UN resolution passed in April that defines the joining of the two former territories as a federation of two states, equal in status and autonomous.

In October lawyers went on a strike in an effort to force the government to stop appointing Francophone magistrates who spoke no English and had no training in common law to preside over courts in the Anglophone regions.

The country is home to Niger-Congo languages in total. These include Benue-Congo languages, 28 Adamawa languages and a single Senegambian language.

Of the Benue-Congo languages, of them are Bantu tongues. Read more: The Languages of Nigeria. A total of 55 Cameroon languages are classified as Afro-Asiatic. The French spoken in Cameroon is largely similar to that spoken in France, with the addition of some local influences on accents and vocabulary. Likewise, Cameroonian English has its own distinctive accent and words borrowed from local tongues.

English is spoken in the Northwest and Southwest provinces, which are located to the north-west of Cameroon, bordering Nigeria. That said, many Cameroonians still study German as a foreign language at school and there are believed to be around , German learners and speakers in Cameroon — one of the largest clusters of German speakers in Africa.

You can read more about the languages spoken in Africa by clicking the link below. As so often happens when imported languages meet indigenous tongues, pidgin languages have been born in Cameroon to aid communication. In the two anglophone provinces — Northwest and Southwest — many residents use Cameroonian Pidgin English as a lingua franca. In urban areas, meanwhile, young people are increasingly speaking a relatively new pidgin: Camfranglais. Also called Francanglais or Francamglais, the pidgin blends Cameroonian French, Cameroonian English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, as well as incorporating various indigenous lexical elements.

Some cities have seen the use of Camfranglais replace that of Cameroonian Pidgin English to the extent that it is Camfranglais that has emerged as the lingua franca within the city. Some linguists now class Camfranglais as a creole due to its expanded usage, while some Cameroonian educators believe that it is another reason that bilingualism in French and English has been hard to achieve, with young people using Camfranglais as a shortcut.

Other than French and English, what language is spoken in Cameroon? Ewondo is also mutually intelligible with Bulu, Eton and Fang. There are over half a million Ewondo speakers in Cameroon, but there is some concern that the language is being subsumed by French.

It is hoped that the inclusion of Ewondo as a candidate for the additional official language of Cameroon by will do much to promote and preserve its use.

Around , Cameroonians speak Bassa as their mother tongue. The joyous celebration of dance reached number one in at least 10 countries across Europe. Considered the lingua franca of northern Cameroon, Fulfulde is a dialect continuum that spans 20 West and Central African countries.

Also called Fula, Fulani and Fulah, it is a non-tonal language that is spoken as a second tongue by many Cameroonians. At least civilians were killed in the preceding year, Amnesty International reported in September. Among the hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians displaced are about 30, who fled to Nigeria as refugees, according to United Nations estimates.

Human rights groups have also accused separatists of attacking security forces and burning down schools, among other abuses. Commander Candice Tresch, a spokesperson for the US Defence Department , said that the United States has received assurances from the Cameroonian government that US assistance will not be diverted from its intended purpose, which includes fighting Islamist extremists in the north.

Tibor Nagy, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the United States takes allegations of human rights violations in Cameroon seriously.

The Cameroonian government denies that it is targeting civilians or burning down Anglophone villages. Badjeck said the military is burning only secessionist camps, not civilian villages. Civilians who have fled Anglophone areas and advocates working with them tell a different story. In , France and Britain seized the territory from Germany, and it was later divided between them. The following year, English speakers in part of the British territory opted to join Cameroon, and a bilingual country was born.

Cameroon is home to more than local languages, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries in Africa. But French and English are its official languages, unifying its many ethnic groups.

President Paul Biya, a Francophone, has held office since and was re-elected for another seven-year term in October, after a widely contested election. Many English speakers did not participate in the vote. English speakers claimed that officials in Yaounde were essentially forcing the minority Anglophones to assimilate into Francophone legal and educational systems.

Boli said Cameroon will decide by on which of the languages can be used as an official language, added to English and French. She said by so doing, they intend to solve the separatist crisis that has within the past four years claimed at least 3, lives just because people are divided as a result of two inherited colonial languages.

Separatists have been fighting to create an English-speaking state out of the French-speaking majority. The separatists say the education, legal system and cultural practices they inherited from their British colonial masters are different from those left by the French, who colonized the French-speaking regions of the country.

Cameroon believes by having its own national language as an official language, many of its citizens will feel like Cameroonians, unlike in the past when they considered themselves either French or English. UNESCO says it celebrates mother tongue day because it believes in the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for sustainable societies and it is within its mandate for peace that it works to preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others.

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