Kamtok is an English-based pidgin language used in Cameroon. It is a lingua franca in Cameroon. Cameroon has 2 official languages which are French and English. Though Kamtok is not an official language, it is learned by children since infancy along with their mother tongue. Cameroonians regard Kamtok as not being very desirable but they are attached to it and they find it useful. Developed from pidgin, took up by the childeren as thier first language, Kamtok is now a well established variety in Cameroon where it is used in Radio, TV, churches, etc.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
1) WHAT IS KAMTOK?
2) PIDGIN & CREOLE
Pidgin
A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. Most pidgins are based on European languages such as English, Spanish and French.
Creole
When a generation whose parents speaking pidgin teach their children pidgin as their first language, the pidgin now becomes a creole. A creole is characterized as having more systematic structure of language such as in vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar.
3) BACKGROUND
Kamtok existed in Cameroon in the Slave Trade Years (1400-1800) 500 years ago. Labourers who came to Cameroon speaking various indigenous languages had to use one lingua franca to make it possible for them to talk to each other. They began to use English and French as bases for Kamtok especially in vocabulary while applying the grammatical structure of the indigenous language. There are five varieties of Kamtok currently recognized:
1) Grafi Kamtok
Variety used in the grassfields and often referred to as 'Grafi Talk'
2) Liturgical Kamtok
Used by the Catholic church
3) Francophone Kamtok
Used mainly in towns such as Douala and Yaoundé and by francophones talking
to anglophones who do not speak French
4) Limbe KamtoK
Spoken mainly in the southwest coastal area around the port that usedto be called Victoria and is now Limbe.
5) Bororo Kamtok
Spoken by the Bororo cattle traders, many of whom travel throughNigeria and Cameroon.
4) CAMEROON
Cameroon has a population of 15.5 million and 475,440 square kilometers of size. Cameroon is a fertile country which produces cocoa, banana, tea and coffee. The country borders Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and is regarded “Africa in miniature” due to its diverse population.60% of Cameroonian population is literate. The education is either through the medium of English or French where students are expected are expected to be bilingual. About 40% of the population follows some form of indigenous beliefs, 40% adhere to a form of Christianity, and 20% are Muslim.
5) KAMTOK VOCABULARY
Most Kamtok words are from English, but many have been widened in meaning. For example, 'buk' means a book, can also mean letter or anything written.
There are also many borrowed words from local languages. 'Savi buk' to mean ‘know book’ refers to educated.
There are many loan translations from local languages. For example, idiomatic phrases are usually directly translated from local vernaculars:
There are also many borrowed words from local languages. 'Savi buk' to mean ‘know book’ refers to educated.
There are many loan translations from local languages. For example, idiomatic phrases are usually directly translated from local vernaculars:
drai ai : dry + eye = 'courage’
krai dai : cry + die = 'wake'
put han : put + hand = 'help'
haf dai : half + die = 'difficult'
krai dai : cry + die = 'wake'
put han : put + hand = 'help'
haf dai : half + die = 'difficult'
In early Kamtok, only a few words only were borrowed in the plural form:
ans : 'ant'
ashis : 'ash'
bins : 'bean'
tit : 'tooth/teeth'
Plurals have been taken into the language, the most widely used of which are:
aidiaz :'ideas'
chips :'chips, crisps'
machis :'matches'
pleaz :'football players'
sohks :'socks'
twinz : 'twins'
In addition, a few uncountable words have been pluralised:
advaisis :'pieces of advice'
johngks :'items of junk'
slangz :'slang terms
Non-English vocabulary relates to culture and kinship
ngɔmbi : a ghost, spirit of the dead.
danshiki :a tunic-like shirt
mbanya :co-wife in a polygamous family,
mbombo :someone with the same name
as someone else,
njamanjama :green vegetables.
6) KAMTOK SOUND
Kamtok is a non-rhotic and syllable-timed. It has seven vowels /i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u/ and four diphthongs /ei, ai, au, oi/.
a, e and o are pronounced similar to the "pure" vowels of Spanish; eh is similar to the 'e' sound in English "bet"; oh is similar to the 'aw' sound in "awful".
Many speakers do not differentiate the vowels in the English words
"cot"
"court"
"cut"
=pronouncing all these words as koht.
Many speakers of Kamtok (especially uneducated, rural speakers) use the sounds and sound patterns of their mother tongues.
Consonants are always followed by vowels (CVCV) except for except at the end of a word, where the last sound may be a nasal sound, such as m, n or ng (e.g. CVCVN):
arata/alata 'rodent'
kam 'come'
midu 'middle'
sikin 'skin'
7) KAMTOK GRAMMAR
-Kamtok has an eight-term set of personal pronouns:
a /mi : ‘me’ or ‘I’
yu : ‘you’ (singular)
una / wuna : ‘you’ (plural)
i : ‘he’, ‘she’ ‘it’
we : ‘we’ ‘us’
dem : ‘they’ ‘them’
- Grammar and plurals are assumed from contexts:
Tu pikin : ‘two children’
Ma pikin dem : ‘they are my children’
-Time and aspect in tense are assumed from contexts
A bin go : ‘I been gone’ (I went)
I go go : ‘he will go’
Wi wan go : ‘we almost went’
Wuna you go : ‘you are going’
A go big : ‘I be big’ (I grow up)
9) ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE
“They said: “glory to Thee, of knowledge we have none, save what Thou hast taught us: in truth it is Thou Who art perfect in knowledge and wisdom.”
(Al-Baqarah, verse 31)
- The above Qur’anic verse provides us with a clear insight that as compared to other creatures, man derives his superiority from the epistemic ability which God endowed in him. However, the human process of knowing various fields of knowledge is almost inconceivable without involving any kind of language.
- Language should be appreciated by mankind for it is a gift from Allah S.W.T and by using it, people can communicate with each other and continue the harmonious process of living. Each and every kind of language is unique and it carries a speaker’s national identity and even his or her religion.
- There is a hadith that says, “Seeking knowledge is obligatory upon all Muslims”. One should excel in more than one language since language itself is part of knowledge. It would be a great advantage for people who learn and know KAMTOK because this language is recognized as a lingua-franca. Majority of Cameroonians are Muslims and speak KAMTOK. All Muslims regardless of their geographical areas are able to utter at least few words of Arabic. If Muslims are able to speak KAMTOK as well, it would strengthen the sense of brotherhood between brothers and sisters in
- Our beloved Prophet Muhammad S.A.W used language in conveying the da’wah. By knowing KAMTOK, we can reach our brothers in
11) REFLECTION ON BLOG
This assignment is a major project for ENGL 4740 class. Upon receiving this assignment, we feel quite worried because we need to create a blog for our class and the content of the blog must be related with subjects we learned in our department, DELL.
Creating a blog is not an easy task for us as our group members have zero knowledge about blog. We do not really know how to do it even after Dr. Rozina has assigned one lecturer to assist us in creating the blog. The major problem we encountered in comleting this assignment is to discover the suitable topic for our blog. We have proposed the topic of "Kamtok" which is one of the topics we learned in Varieties of English's class.
In completing this blog, we have encountered many problems like internet connection problem. But, we managed to find solution to this problem. As we have zero knowledge on blogging, we
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