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.