A Grammar of Cameroonian Pidgin
This volume represents a comprehensive description of the structure of Cameroonian Pidgin, including an overview of its socio-cultural context, writing system, sounds, word formation, word classes and sentence structures. It comprises a corpus of 540 Cameroonian Pidgin proverbs and a rich glossary of over 1000 words and expressions typical of Cameroonian Pidgin which are helpful in understanding the characteristic features of the language, as well as the cultural, the social, and the philosophical contexts of the Cameroonian Pidgin speaker. Written with the first-hand experience of a “native speaker”, it will be of interest to ordinary users, as well as students, researchers and professional linguists interested in the way the language functions. Indeed, it represents a useful resource for anyone wishing to learn or know about Pidgin, especially tourists and professionals traveling to West and Central Africa.
Nkemngong Nkengasong is Professor of Literature at the University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon. He has published extensively on Modernism in English literature, African literature and culture, postcolonial studies, and literary stylistics. He is also a prolific creative writer who has published several works of fiction, drama and poetry. The present volume reveals his current interests in the interrelations of literature, linguistics and cultural studies.
"[The author's] goals of helping foreigners communicate in multiethnic Cameroon and laying groundwork for further serious documentation are admirably realized (p.4). He shares more than enough information to enable both accomplishments. The book's large amount of data, especially the hundreds of full sentences in the Pidgin Proverbs and Sayings appendix, ensure that the determined reader can proceed beyond the standard-English oriented contrastive presentation and answer most questions that a linguist's analysis would address. [...] In summary, this volume is a fine and stimulating introduction to a West African contact language. Filled with extensive usage examples, it is sure to reward readers both lay and linguistic in orientation. Any future edition can easily build on what is already contained between its covers, expanding into a detailed, authoritative reference for much future study."
David Douglas Robertson LINGUIST List 27.3554, 09.09.2016
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