Varieties and Consciousness in Usage: Cameroon Pidgincreole and its Speakers

After so many years of its existence in Cameroon and its development into varieties, both national and international scholars are still engaged in the debate about whether the various varieties of Cameroon Pidgincreole (CPc) are mutually intelligibility. This article attempts an examination of some existing varieties of CPc English and their various speakers, seeking to know whether speakers of a particular variety are aware of the existence of other varieties around them and whether they do understand such different varieties. The study used questionnaires to get the opinions of the respondents, who were both anglophone and francophone literates. The results indicate that some speakers know about the existence of CPc but not about varieties, while others are aware of the existence of varieties but cannot identify them distinctly by name. This paper is hinged on Microparametric Variation Model of Barbiers, Cornips, and vanderKleij. The results indicate that the question of mutual intelligibility is to an extent a battle among linguists, which does not directly concern the speakers who use this lingua franca daily without noticing differences. This equally indicates that even though there exist some indecipherable elements to speakers, codification and standardisation is quite possible because such elements in most of the varieties do not hinder understanding.

Keywords: Cameroon Pidgincreole, Varieties, Consciousness, Anglophone, Francophone.