Minority language use in Cameroon and educated indigenes' attitude to their languages
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Jean-Paul Kouega
Abstract
This article examines the use of indigenous languages in Cameroon and the attitudes of their native speakers to these languages. The subjects are a group of highly literate young male and female Cameroonians doing Combined French–English studies at the University of Yaounde I. The data collected are responses to a 36-item questionnaire devised to check the contexts of use of these languages. The analysis reveals, among other things, that some use of the indigenous languages is reported in the home setting and that these languages are hardly used in the domains of education and the media, especially TV and newspapers. Although these youths are themselves illiterate in their mother tongues, they are prepared to encourage their children to learn their ancestral languages and, if they happen to be rich, they would not hesitate to finance the development of these ancestral languages.
© Walter de Gruyter
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- Attitudes to western loanwords in Indonesian
- Minority language use in Cameroon and educated indigenes' attitude to their languages
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Articles in the same Issue
- Authenticities and lineages: revisiting concepts of continuity and change in language
- Which self? Pronominal choice, modernity, and self-categorizations
- Attitudes to western loanwords in Indonesian
- Minority language use in Cameroon and educated indigenes' attitude to their languages
- Language maintenance among “fortunate immigrants”: The French in the United States and Americans in France
- Language use in interlingual families: Do different languages make a difference?
- Effects of cultural background of college students on apology strategies
- Language contact in South America
