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Language is a very important part of our life. Language is system by which we use to communicate. Language is a way of communicating a certain culture by a group of persons. Every country or community has a Language that is unique to it's people and exposes their culture.

Today I will look to talk about a Language that is unique to the Cameroon people. The Pidgin English.

WHAT IS PIDGIN ENGLISH AND WHERE DID IT ORIGIN.

I will like to start by talking about the origin of pidgin English. As we all know, pidgin English is a Language spoken in most English speaking African countries like Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana Sierra Leone just to name a few.

Pidgin English originated from the colonial period when the colonial countries colonized the African countries and tried to develop communication. So pidgin English was developed due to the need for communication between Britain and it's territories like southern Cameroon, Nigeria etc. So how can we defined Pidgin English.

The simplest way I can put it is that Pidgin English is a combination of British English and the local Language of the people. Pidgin English was and still is a mixture of the Language of a place and English and that is why even though pidgin English is very similar, it is however different between each ethnic group.

Take for example, the Pidgin English spoken in Nigeria can be understood by people of Cameroon but there is a huge difference in pronunciation of the words. Just by pronunciation and style of talking, you can identify if a person is a Cameroonian or a Ghanaian. It is the same thing with British English and American English, very similar yet minor difference in style of talk and pronunciation.
Furthermore, there is a difference between the way Northwest Cameroon and Southwest cameroon speak Pidgin English. Now let me try and show a similarity between English and Pidgin English.

• English: Come let us go to the house.
• Pidgin English: Come make we go house.

From the above sentence, you can see that the word Let was replaced with Make. The word Us was replaced with We.
And as a common thing, the word Us is hardly ever used in Pidgin English.

• English: What have you eaten?
• Pidgin English: You don chop weri?

In general sense, Pidgin English is shorter than English. The native people of Africa were looking for every possible to learn the English language as fast as possible.

CONCLUSION

Although pidgin English is not an official language in my country Cameroon, it is however a very important part of the culture of the people of my country. I believe it is our heritage and we should be proud of it.
It is not every day a person tries to teach you a new thing and you change it to your own version.

This is just the tip of tye iceberg when we talk about Pidgin English. I introduced this because in the days ahead I will be sharing with us all some of the important and unique words in Pidgin especially unique to my country. I hope by reading these posts you will be able to associate with a Bamenda man when you see one.

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