Current Insights into the Evolution of Cameroon English: The Contribution of the ‘Anglophone Problem’

Abstract

The resurgence of what is today referred to as the ‘Anglophone problem/crisis’ has led to several sociocultural, religious, political and linguistic developments which have in no little measure contributed to reshaping the linguistic landscape of Camerooon. Through the Ecolinguistic and Descriptive Statistical Approaches, this investigation delves into the linguistic fallouts and dynamics of the crisis and illustrates how through different linguistic processes like borrowing, neologisms, affixation, blending, clipping, translation and interpretation, etc., English in Cameroon is undergoing indigenisation. This paper demonstrates how the sensitive issue at stake has proffered a propitious breeding ground for the eventual enrichment of the lexical capital of the language. Thus, recurrent patterns in popular usage, viz: ambalander, aluta continua, total ghosting of towns, black cats/vipers/tigers of General Ivo, dipper wearing regime, Bui/Manyu county, royal beggars, Operation Whistle and Pepper Spray, inter alia, constitute new forms of expression as well as old forms that have been accorded novel semantic shades in order to express meaningful thought.