Unilingual Past, Multilingual Present,Uncertain Future: The Case of Yaounde

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Dimanche, 23 avril 2006

Unilingual Past, Multilingual Present,Uncertain Future: The Case of
Yaounde (2)

[ Quebec - Canada ] ( 23/ 04/2006) Gisele Tchoungui

Official ethnolinguistic figures are virtually non-existent, because of a
conscious political choice by the authorities. Until 1960, the French and
British regimes were good sources for the countrys ethnolinguistic
composition, although itwas skewed to fit their divide-and-rule policy;
annual reports to the United Nations Trusteeship Council were mandatory.
Along these lines, the National Identification Card was more informative
during the Trusteeship; it did not just state the owners names, date/place
of birth, profession, address and fathers/mothers names. As in
Belgian-ruled Rwanda where postindependence governments, contrary to
Cameroon, retained the practice conceived by the colonial masters, the
card also stated the ethnic group.

Ethnolinguistic Ecology

Official ethnolinguistic figures are virtually non-existent, because of a
conscious political choice by the authorities. Until 1960, the French and
British regimes were good sources for the countrys ethnolinguistic
composition, although itwas skewed to fit their divide-and-rule policy;
annual reports to the United Nations Trusteeship Council were mandatory.
Along these lines, the National Identification Card was more informative
during the Trusteeship; it did not just state the owners names, date/place
of birth, profession, address and fathers/mothers names. As in
Belgian-ruled Rwanda where postindependence governments, contrary to
Cameroon, retained the practice conceived by the colonial masters, the
card also stated the ethnic group.

As explained by a Census Bureau director, questions even remotely related
to origin, ethnicity and language are carefully deleted fromcensuses as
they were in 1976 and 1980 when the request to insert such questions for
research purposes wasmade by and denied toUniversity of Yaounde research
teams. In a nationist move that emphasises unity (Kloss, 1968),
post-independence governments have chosen to ignore ethnolinguistic
differences, aswill be seen, with mixed results. At the time of the German
Reich, the community was monoethnic and monolinguistic. Ethnolinguistic
neighbourhoods are now the hallmark of this officially bilingual
capital.Yaounde, where Fang-related groups like the Basaa, theDwala
andtheBafia also converged, seemed predestined to be amelting-pot.
Cameroon urban immigration is difficult to assess with the usual criteria.
While the first reason, as stated earlier is political, the second is
cultural and related to the applicability of the concept for the
individual: as rightly noted by Franqueville (1970, 1984), Eton immigrants
do not consider themselves immigrants as long as they remain within the
boundaries of Fangland or Betiland which, as already mentioned, cover
foreign countries like Gabon; the same applies to Cameroon Fulani
travelling to Mauritania or Senegal. By contrast, individuals consider
themselves immigrants in regions of their own country where the ethnic
groups are different.

The third reason for the difficult assessment of immigration is
sociological and is related to the instability of the condition; in the
field, regardless of their socioeconomic status, interviewees defined
themselves as temporarily displaced, not immigrants. Immigration seemed a
nomadic condition during which individuals plied from the city to the
village and back, for various periods. I have called this species of
residents the rururbanites, or residents of Rururbia. Rather than
immigration, a more fitting term to describe the phenomenon is the
rural-urban mobility factor (RUMF). Comparative RUMF figures show that
Yaounde and Douala are very similar: 85.8%and 85.6%residentswere born
elsewhere, in Yaounde and Douala respectively. Yaounde (1,000,000)was an
aggregate of villages and hamlets that connected over decades to form a
town. Immigration was rather homogeneous until independence (1960) when
non-Fang immigrants, traders or civil servants, trickled in, regrouping in
urban ethnic villages. The toponymy of the old quarters emphasises
ethnicity:Quartier Babute andQuartierYambasa derive their names from the
first immigrants ethnolinguistic groups during the German Reich
when the firstwas occupied by the Vute soldiers enrolled in the German
imperial army, and the second by the Yambasa--rallied to the GermanKaiser.
The feature is not confined to the capital, nor is it limited to old
quarters; in Garoua, the capital of the North Province, in one of the
immigrant sections, interviewees claimed that they lived in le Quartier
Bamileke de Garoua, thus omitting its local name. At reunification (1961),
the flow of anglophone immigration began with anglophones appointed to
federal agencies. After unification (1972) and the ensuing cancellation of
the politico-linguistic double capital system, important West Cameroon
public services were relocated in Yaounde. Immigration has been intense
ever since.

 The RUMF points to the submersion of the original native Ewondo whose
occupancy rate since the 1970s is believed to have dropped by more than
50%. This follows a pattern common to other cities, like Douala on the
Atlantic, Nkongsamba in the West, or Ngaoundere on the Adamawa Plateau,
where the local Dwala, Mboh and Mbum populations have been submerged by
non-natives. This pattern can be viewed as the future fabric of the
country, since work in the field has revealed that non-natives sometimes
account formore than 80%of the urban population in the top 40 cities.Added
to the RUMF, a massive expropriation policy was carried out after
unification to extend the citys boundaries and accommodate new residents.

The result was a more acute depletion of the substratum of original ethnic
settlers and their replacement with a huge influx of immigrants. Fieldwork
also revealed that quarters inhabited by the original population did not
exceed three, but even then, there was no guarantee that a stranger would
be understood if (s)he used Ewondo or another Fang dialect.
Administratively, Yaounde is divided into arrondissements, districts which
include sub-districts called quartiers. Ethnically and linguistically,
there have always been two categories of these quarters: polyethnic and
monoethnic ones.

Charles Atangana

The distinction dates from the German Protectorate: there were those who
worked and those who did not work for the administration. The houses of
the former were located on Administrative Hill or nearby camps, and living
there imparted much prestige. Such quarters were polyethnic and have
stayed that way, which does not mean that they are ethnically neutral.
Quartierswhere middle-class civil servants lived were characterisedby
ethnic diversity. Therewere twotypes of polyethnic neighbourhoods:
francophone and anglophone. In the former, the lingua franca was French,
used by residents among themselves and often with their children.
Participant observation has shown that French was used extensively, if not
exclusively, by school-age children on the playground. In polyethnic
neighbourhoods occupied by anglophones, French was replaced by pidgin used
by all generations from pre-school to old age in the home and with
outsiders. According to respondents, the motivation to move to the
capitalwas economic or political: Yaounde attracted as the seat of
decision-making.

 Due to this, the spatial pattern of anglophone immigration was
remarkable: anglophones from the south-west or north-west, the former
Federated State of West Cameroon, concentrated in an arch-like fashion
around the GermanOngola, the largest public and educational complex of the
country which included government buildings and schools, as well as the
University. The bulk of anglophone immigration in polyethnic quarters
consisted of students and civil servants. They were joined by those
dubbed, with slightly derogatory overtones, les Biafrais, a term coined
for the Ibo driven away from their homeland during the Biafra secession of
the 1970s. The term became used generically for all Nigerians. The
Biafraiswere traders bilingual in pidgin, and in French in the younger
generation. Patterns of communication in monoethnic neighbourhoods are
striking because of their distinctive traits: residents regrouped along
the lines of ethnicity and language.

Urban life was a replica of village life (Franqueville, 1987; Courade,
1994) therefore adding more depth and dimension to the terms Rururbia and
rururbanites. The quarterswere mass transit areaswhere occupants nurses,
secretaries, office messengers, small traders, jobless people and illegal
aliens waited for an improvement of their economic status and living
conditions (Roubaud, 1993). Same-language speakers regrouped and lived in
unilingual urbanmicrocommunities. Various ethnolinguistic quarters
surfaced: thosewith Fang Beti rururbanites and those with the immigrants
proper.Groups close to the Fang the Bafia, Yambasa, Babute and Sanaga also
formed ethnolinguistic clusters. Added to this urban ethnic patchwork, and
in keeping with theRUMFeconomic component, other socioeconomic enclaves
surfaced, as in the case of Eton and Basaa farmers, the capitals purveyors
of food crops, who evinced a propensity to reside near the towns big
markets, that is, close to their economic interests. Experience shows
thatwith the older segment of the population, a strangermight have
communication problems if (s)he spoke only French or Standard English,
problems usually solved by a child or teenager acting as a makeshift
interpreter.

The citys north-west section, occupied by the Bamileke and the Hausa,
seemed more heavily ethnic. The term Bamileke, like the term Fang Beti, is
used generically for the Cameroon Grassfields Bantu of the francophone
west and anglophone north-west.The two groupswere artificially separated
during themandates and trusteeships and have identical ethnolinguistic
cultures on either side of the former FrenchBritish colonial border. The
most important influx of rururbanites into the capitals self-contained
ethnolinguistic villages came from the Grassfields and, interestingly,
Bamileke migrants regrouped along chieftaincy lines. In the Cameroon
context, the term Hausa is also used generically to identify,wrongly, any
place/individual north of the Lake of Tibati and to impart a Moslem
identity not always proven by facts. The Hausa quarters were occupied by
Fulani from the Adamawa,North and Far North provinces. A separate section
was occupied by the Bamun whose spatial distribution highlighted the fact
that religion may transcend language and ethnicity to a certain extent:
like the Fulani, the Bamun regrouped around the Little Mosque and the
Grand Mosque.

Yet the Bamun, whose language is close to the Bangante dialect of the
Bamileke group, are actually Bamileke converted to Islam. Illegal aliens,
a by-product of the wars fought in neighbouring countries, were attracted
by Cameroons reputation for being en Afrique, un lot de paix, as Pope John
Paul II said in his inaugural speech during his 1985 official visit; they
were Nigerians facing insecurity in their homeland, Chadians driven away
by the on-off Chad-Libyan war and people fromthe Sahel fleeing drought.All
used the Fulani andHausa languages. French or pidgin were used with
strangers.Quarters occupied by the so-called Bamileke and Hausa were
remarkably self-contained; observation showed that residents could carry
out private/public business within the quarters boundaries. Occupants
could spend weeks without speaking French or English. Yet anybody in need
of services outside the quarter would have to use official languages,
preferably French. There were significant differences between the two
sections; for the stranger unable to speak Bamileke dialects with elders,
a junior family member would be able to translate, which wasnot the case
for the Hausa quarterswhere boys and girlswere sent toKoranic schools
before attending public schools. Bamun immigrants again evinced their dual
ethnic/religious allegiance they sent their children toKoranic schools and
to public schools at the official age. Patterns of spatial distribution
were therefore factors of ethnolinguistic reinforcement.

Combined with self-contained urban villages, other factors of
ethnolinguistic reinforcement emerged, some linked with western-style
democracy, others with traditional institutions and even religion. In
theCameroon socioculture, the termethnic, used locally and interchangeably
with tribal, is synonymous with excessive ethnocentrism, a phrase
considered with suspicioneven in itsmildestmanifestations. It expresses
the fear of hegemony by a single ethnic group. However, government
guidelines also stress the importance of Cameroonmulticulturalism.

Ethnolinguistic reinforcement is the perverse outcome of the contradictory
attempts by the authorities to even out ethnicitywhile
promotingmulticulturalism.With its universal suffrage and freedom of
information, of speech and of worship, Cameroon has some of the worlds
most democratic institutions. Its constitution is a mixed bag of similar
documents in the west. In certain sections, it reads like a copy of the
constitution of Frances Fifth Republic or the American constitution.
Nevertheless, nowhere is the theoretical negation of ethnicity more truly
divorced from reality than in the political, legislative and
administrative spheres.

On the executive level, the Federal and United Republics had two
francophone presidents. Holders of key cabinet positions (Treasury,
Defence, Trade) were francophone, a pattern prevalent in officially
bilingual countries (Canada, Belgium) where one culture is/was dominant.
The three Vice-Presidents of the Federal Republic, who were also Prime
Ministers of the Federated State ofWestCameroon,were anglophone, and the
three PrimeMinisters ofEastCameroonwere francophone.

At unification (1972), the power spread underwent cosmetic changes to suit
geolinguistics and the President of the NationalAssembly, an anglophone,
became commander-in-chief after the President. Despite increased
visibility for anglophones after theNew Deal (1982), the weight of
demography, territorial and linguistic spread does not favour the
anglophone speech community; fieldwork revealed that francophones, unaware
of historic reversals that had turned a majority into a minority and of
the minorityposition of French as aworld language comparedwithEnglish,
enjoyed their status. In the wake of the New Deals democratisation,
elections have increasingly been fought both along ethnolinguistic lines
and over official bilingualism. Intensification of ethnocentrismfollowing
democratisation is common in Africa (Nigeria, Rwanda) and elsewhere
(Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). Exacerbated ethnocentrism in
Cameroon  in spite or because of democratisation  confirms the impression
that this quiet nation is indeed a powder barrel in the making.


On the legislative level, the Federal Republic had three separate
assemblies. The two federated states in Buea and Yaounde with their
anglophone and francophoneMPs, respectively,were assumed to be homogeneous
regarding the official languages. Yet most anglophone MPs spoke pidgin
instead of English, while French seemed a novelty to a sizable number of
francophone MPs. The Federal Assembly in Yaounde drew from both groups.

The cost of running two legislatures in an undeveloped country, coupled
with other considerations,was a factor in the decision that led to the
merging of the federated states, although the federal system was probably
the wiser course in the transition period. Since the New Deal
democratisation, votes have been increasingly cast along ethnolinguistic
lines. In the judiciary,which,with education, was probably themost
difficult sector to blend for the federated states, dominance of one
official culture was a determining factor.Observers acquainted with the
disparities between the French and British legal systems, and the fact
that individual rights seem better protected by the British principle of
habeas corpus, voiced their regrets that the majority in Cameroonwas
francophone. Presidents were appointed along linguistic lines in higher
courts, like the Supreme Court.

 French was the language most spoken. English seldom appeared except when
used by anglophone lawyers or witnesses, and the most visible success of
the anglophone judiciary was the mandatory white wigs worn by Cameroon
judges. In lower courts, a provision allowed the judge to ask for an
interpreter.

Testimonies in the national languages were the most badly dealt with: a
professional interpreter was never available and,more than once,
debateswere sloweddownor brought to a grinding halt for a few embarrassing
minutes, while clerks repeated the judges request for a volunteer to
translate his/her questions or the statements of the intimidated and
confused witnesses. In most cases, the unprepared and reluctant clerk
ended up acting as a bad makeshift interpreter. On the administrative
level, bracketing ethnicity and, at the same time, balancing the weight of
each group was admittedly the will of the authorities. But because
administrationdealswith citizens on a daily basis, this balancing act met
with resentment from all groups. It was particularly noticeable during the
yearly re-appointment of civil servants.

 The ensuing exercise in precarious ethnic fairness left all groups
thoroughly dissatisfied, even when the government tried to allot an equal
weight to each, and to select among the various groups jockeying for
positions, as well as among members of the two official linguistic
communities. In this system, each ethnic group is perceived as the
adversary; social inclusion rarely takes place while ethnic exclusion
functions fully and constantlyat all levels. Intercultural and
statecommunicationtherefore suffer from permanent imbalance and are
partially if not totally nullified.

On the whole, the workability of the constitution and the institutions in
the ethnolinguistic ecology under study is not only difficult but
impracticable because each ethnolinguistic group aspires to supersede the
Other and constantly sees the Other as a threat to its vital space
(Mbuyinga, 1989). Ethnic polarities are so potent that appointments can
never be ethnically balanced enough and democracy cannot exist in the
western sense. Indeed, it cannot be truly operative since any genuine
attempt atdemocracy is interpreted negatively by the other ethnic groups
not in power nor sufficiently empowered as an attackagainst them by those
in power who are always perceived as unduly empowered.

The nation-stateis conceived as an exclusive domain by each ethnic
constituency. The result is neither a true functioning of democracy nor
real democratic opposition but ethnic allegiance and ethnic resistance.
Western-style democratic institutions are the hostages of the citys and
nations ethnic fabric and, as elsewhere in the Cameroon socioculture, the
too simplistic bipolar anglophonefrancophone configuration is warped by
its interplay with ethnic cultures. An inevitable alchemy governs the
relationship between the strongly ethnic-orientated individual and the
public bodies which strive openly to be non-ethnic or ethnic-blind.
Ethnicity is the communities Weltanschauung, their Zeitgeist, and it bears
on all aspects of the citizens life, causing cascading reactions that
reverberate everywhere. The outcome is a communication breakdown for the
nation-state.

Observation has shown that intricate urban ethnic clusters have made the
towns and the countrys fabric extremely volatile, teeming with tensions
and rivalries. But the reinforcement of ethnicity cannot be solely
attributed to urban clusters; itwas further fuelled by western-style
democratic institutions although such institutions aspired to be, at least
officially and on the surface, ethnically balanced.

The reinforcement of ethnicity was also fuelled by ethnic associations.
>>From their first contacts with the Europeans, the lexicons of the national
languages were invaded with foreign borrowings (like beled coined from
bread) to meet the demands of new realities. In contrast, the concept
imperfectly rendered by ethnic welfare and financial associations is
conveyed with indigenous words: tchuch/ntchwa (Bamileke), njangi (Basaa or
Dwala), esuan/ekon/nsang (Fang Beti). Characteristically, the names of the
associations also use national languages: Afidi/Trust, Ekoan Ngol/Mercy
Fund, Elat Minem/Heart Links, Oyili/Promise.

 Ethnic associations are a staple feature of the native cultures and away
to regain the lost security and sense of belonging that the traditional
society provided. It is of paramount importance for studies in the
sociology of language and intercultural communication to understand the
working of those ethnic urban islets and societalwaterways to explain the
failure of nation-building inmodern Africa. They are a cross between a
social club, a loans-and-savings bank, a mutual insurance fund, a welfare
and cultural society (Henry et al., 1991;Mbala Owono, 1983).Their
influence is enormous and, for obvious reasons, they are the target of
criticism from the banking and political establishment: for the former,
they are financial predators since they drain away huge amounts of capital
badly needed by an undeveloped banking system; for the latter, they
endanger the fragile fabric of a nation-statemodelled on the West.

 They are barely tolerated by the Cameroon AssociationAct which states
that any associationwhose admissions requirements are restricted to
members of the same clan or tribe shall be null and void.However,
associationswith pluriethnicmembership are virtually non-existent.Members
are fromthe same ethnic group, the same chieftaincy, the same village, the
same lineage; although or because ethnic groups are identical on both
sides of the former colonial border, no mixed anglophonefrancophone
membership is reported.

Understandably, national languages are observed to be used, with pidgin in
anglophone meetings. Interestingly, the constitution and regulations are
written in French or English. In meetings, social barriers vanish: the
protocol-conscious minister discusses problems facing the village with

tribesmen in their ethnic tongue; professional people socialise with
carpenters, thus building a two-way clientele. In all, although the
economic value of these associations cannot be underestimated because they
are the basis of thriving businesses (Brenner et al., 1989), their
ultimate negative effects are also apparent since they are and have been
used for ethnic benefits. They areknown to turninto hotbeds of political
manoeuvring, always at the ready if ethnic tensions or rivalries erupt,
and can consequently be seen as strongholds and significant factors of
urban ethnolinguistic reinforcement.

For these communities, the use and non-use of native languages has
functioned as an exclusioninclusion communicative device: a francophone
university administrator has reported how he first realised the
artificiality of the anglophone/francophone label at a three-person
meeting when the other francophone participant and the anglophone began
using their common native language, only reverting to French to say that
they both disagreed with him.

Labels based on official bilingualism sound artificial indeed when
anglophones from the north-west feel closer to francophone Bamileke than
to anglophone Bakweri from the south-west. In such contexts, terms like
nation, the common good, territory, embezzlement, qualifications
appointment, tax, exam are deprived of their usual meanings since the
individuals ethnic group takes precedence over all other democratic
entities.

Ethnicity is so potent that everywhere in the capital, although not as
aggressively as in some provincial cities, being able to relate to a
speech community and ethnic culture is a matter of survival.2 In theory,
owing to the anathema of the mere mention of ethnicity, no
school,hospitalor bank can claim openly to be the exclusive preserve of
anethnic group.More, a school, bank or hospital presumed to serve a single
ethnic group could jeopardise its legal existence. Yet observation has
shown that the choice of a doctor or private clinic is far from being
guided by factors like credentials or reputation; instead it is prompted
by ethnolinguistic considerations. At the bank or post office, a customer
will be more quickly attended to if (s)he speaks the same language as the
clerk or cashier.

Someone applying for a loan has a better chance of getting it if (s)he
plays the ethnic card or by default the acquired native language one.
Otherwise (s)he could be stranded indefinitely despite a good credit
history or bank report. The connection between ethnolinguistics and
economics has far-reaching unsuspected repercussions: in the 1970s, a bank
known for such preferential treatments and ethnic privileges went bankrupt
losing millions in loans to clients who, thanks to their ethnic backing,
could affordwith impunity not to repay. As to education, the spatial
distribution of the neighbourhoods explains the ethnolinguistic colouring
of some unilingual and bilingual schoolswith a 75%enrolment from the same
speech communities.

 The ethnolinguistics of education is even more evident in
non-denominational private secondary schools: although sheer economics
prompted private-school owners to lure beyond ethnicity, their ethnic
group influences enrolment. Knowing that the owner is one of theirs
encourages parents fromgroupswith a high degree of ethnocentrism to enrol
their children, regardless of the standard of education.

Owners from strongly ethnocentric groups recruit teachers and staff almost
exclusively from their own group, regardless of qualifications. An
ethnolinguistic enrolment has surfaced as a result, coupled with an
equally ethnolinguistic teaching and office staff. In higher education,
anethnolinguisticenrolment is also observed in faculties like
LawandArtswhere students regroup both along ethnolinguistic lines and
those of official bilingualism. Academics have resorted to ethnicity to
keep a grip on power or skew the system for ethnic benefits;
administrators and menial staff have been recruited along ethnic lines,
departments staffedwith a single ethnic group fromtop to bottom, and
essential decisions like the teaching of national languages cancelled  a
reminder of one of the first decisions of the government of anglophoneWest
Cameroon after reunification, which cancelled the teaching of Bakweri and
Mungaka, taught in school during the British Trusteeship.A system powered
by ethnicity suits groupswith a high level of ethnocentrism while those
devoid of it are unable to survive.

 In conjunctionwith the states doomed attempts at ethnic balance,
endeavours bywell-meaning bodies like the church to
promotemultilingualismalso proved elusive. Masses on television filmed by
crews in churches and temples in the capital or the vicinitywere
celebrated in French.More, in low-income quarters or posh residential
areas, Moslem families watched Christian masses remorselessly, while
Christian families were observed watching the equivalent Moslem programme
on Friday (la Prire du vendredi).

Long procedural explanations by the iman, unnecessary for and obviously
not directed at an all-Moslem audience, took place in French, before and
after the celebration in Arabic. The seeds of the gains of French as a
transethnic religious language are found in history. Considering the
status of the national languages, the standpoint of three colonial
regimeswas varied.Germanywas flexible and tolerant until 1907: official
syllabuses recommended only one hour for the study of German. In December
1907, the German governor decided to give financial incentives to schools
which would both teach German as a subject and use it as a medium of
instruction. After the Treaty of Versailles and themandates, France
applied coercive measures to impose French as the single medium while the
British went on teaching some national languages.

 In l921, the French Official Gazette in Cameroon stated bluntly: il est
interdit aux matres de se servir des idiomes du pays. The French
governments 1923 report to the League of Nations recommended that
subsidies to mission schools be dropped. It omitted the real reason behind
the move  the missions linguistic policy, the teaching of vernaculaires
was perceived as a threat to the expansion of French; instead, the report
underlined the impracticability of teaching 250 dialectes [sic].

Pidgin seems the only factor currently delaying the progress of French as
a religious language though its spread is not as large as in Douala;
following the transfer of anglophone civil servants to the capitals
central agencies after unification, the Anglophone Sociological Parish was
assigned the task of catering for the religious needs of the anglophone
community; as happens in the anglophone provinces, amixture of English and
pidgin, or an extremely pidginised sort of English, was heard during mass.
However, the missions should be credited with spearheading religious
conquest with multilingualism, although only some selected languages were
taught; the underlying ideology was that the gospel could spread faster in
a language understood by potential converts, and it was not infrequent for
the catechist to double as a school teacher. In South Cameroon, missions
used two forms of the Fang Beti language: Ewondo (Catholic) and Bulu
(Protestant).

 Yet according to Ensemble, the Catholic hierarchys bulletin, only a
quarter of themasses were in the national languages. As well, whenever
Ewondo was the language used, it was coupled with French, which resulted
in a duplication of parts of the service. Interestingly, the Ewondo part
was only performed after the celebrant apologised for not using French.
This recurrent sense of linguistic guilt, a hallmark of Ewondo Catholic
masses, could be interpreted as a proof that the Catholic church in the
capital no longer seemed to favour the use of a common native language.

Two other national languages non-indigenous to the area, Basaa and
Bamileke, were used, in both caseswith fewer or no frequent shifts to
French. However, to cater equally and satisfactorily for all or just some
ethnolinguistic groups became an unconquerable challenge, and despite the
churchs role in language education during colonialism, partisan
ethnolinguistics spilled over religion.

Born in the 1950s in the regions seminaries, a movement aimed at
incorporatingmore native elements to Christianity gave a new lease of life
to the national languages. It bloomed in the wake of Vatican II and
somewhat salvaged ethnolinguistic cultures by reshaping Fang Beti epics of
Cameroon, Gabon and EquatorialGuinea into religious hymns.More than 20
religious choirs operated inYaounde. Yet, as for ethnic
associations,despite the philosophy of universality taught by
Christ,membership in choirswas observed to be along ethnolinguistic lines,
a proof thatdespite the churchs attempts at multilingual communication,it
was unable to improve intercultural communication and lower ethnic
barriers.

Set against the official context that seeks to stampout any trace of
ethnicity, those choirs unabashedly proclaimed theirs; under the cover of
religion, their overt ethnic appeal was probably less alarming to
authorities. Not all choirs used ethnic names, but many did, and besides
the Gospel Singers and Chorale St Kisito, ethnicity was proudly stated by
Chorale Protestante Bamun or Chorale Bamileke. The choice of musical
instruments was also ethnic-orientated. In sections of the city where
ethnic groups lived in adjacent neighbourhoods, multiple ethnolinguistic
choirs and bands would sing and play in turn.

However, group interviews highlighted that ethnic groups non-native to the
area resented that more time was not allotted to their music and
instruments during mass, thus revealing simmering ethnolinguistic
rivalries. Concurrently, grumbles fromthe original native congregationwere
voiced as to the suitability of using other national languages since,
according to them, this courtesywas not returned by church authorities in
masses outside their ethnolinguistic area. It is important to point out
these apparently meaningless facts to understand how some of the best
designs backfire in Africa and how ethnic turmoil never unearthed by the
visiting journalist suddenly erupts in ugly urban ethnic upheavals
engulfing even the church.

The significant feature of thismultilingual context is that all
ethnolinguistic groups evince an inherent tendency to position themselves
against one another, not in politics alone as prime-time news reports let
world audiences believe, but in every possible way. Ethnolinguistics
permeates everything. It is the speakers natural environment.



Ethnicity and Language: A Matter of Survival

In anglophone cities, bilingualism ismore evident, thus demonstratingwhich
of the two imported cultures was dominant in Cameroon, a situation that
could 124 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development be
described, to a certain extent, as a reversed Canada (Tchoungui, 1982,
1983). More than 100 national languages and over 20 foreign ones are
spoken in the capital alone. Pidgin is also spoken, although not as widely
as in anglophone towns, where percentages of pidgin speakers, both adult
and children, constantly vary from 95 to 100. As observed byMackey (1996),
linguistic research is faced with the discovery of situations seemingly
created todefy conventional definitions and thwartoversimplification. The
situation examined in this study is proof, if need be, of the lack of
autonomy of linguistic phenomena and that ethnicity and language in
society do not function in a void. In this bilingual city, the concepts of
mother tongue, national language, first language and lingua francamust be
submitted to close scrutiny and complete reassessment.More often than not,
the mother tongue was not spoken by the speakers forefathers, nor was it
the first language of the mother/father, as in the case of pidgin, nowthe
mother tongue or first language of many young anglophones (just as French
is now the mother tongue or first language of urban youth in affluent
francophone families). For young anglophone and francophone speakers, the
pidginised language, or acrolect, and the official foreign language, or
exolect, are the home language since they use itwith parents at home. The
native, ethnic or national language is a second language in which young
speakers have a lower degree of written and oral competence than in pidgin
or French. The national languages, although native to the speakers, are
not the official ones, since the languages spoken by the ethnic nations
(ayong) were cast aside at independence by the constitution; the political
purposewas to hold the fledgling nation together, thus avoiding clashes
that could have ripped the country apart and led to the breakdown of the
budding nation-state.

The choice of two languages of culture, two languages of wider
communication, as official languages then seemed justified. Yet the
official languages used in political and administrative spheres within the
territory, as territorial languages, are actually the second or third
language of the speaker. For identity reasons, when carrying out daily
business, they are often dropped by the urban speaker who prefers the
medium most likely to reap better communicative, economic and professional
benefits, although the typical ethnic speaker remains illiterate in his
ethnic language or ethnolect. In these intricate urban communication
patterns, none of the language categories enjoys a significantly stable
dominant position. At any time, all categories, ethnolects, exolects and
acrolects, assume a minority language position, either for the individual
speaker or the community, the so-called official languages included,
despite the use of those exolects in officialdomand the weight of history
that gave them amajority languageposition and a halo associated with noble
cultures. Eagerly exploited by the authorities, official bilingualism
depicts Yaounde as a suitable venue for world conferences. In the capital
of the only bilingual country in Africa, as the government notes, a French
visitor moves around as easily as in Paris; thedistinctive accented French
with its semantic idiosyncracies is not sufficiently remote from the
standard to disturb understanding. French is used extensively at home,
schoolandwork, in formal/informal situations. In this respect, Yaounde
differs fromnorthern towns likeGaroua, or anglophone towns like Bamenda,
where Fulfulde or pidgin create situations of urban diglossia. Learning
French is a matter of survival because its dominance is tied to prestige
Unilingual Past, Multilingual Present 125 and the job market. Conversely,
the national languages are a minority within a minority. Despite the
disparity between the official languages, the positions of English and the
national languages which show regressive features are not comparable.
Although history cites languages pronounced dead then revived, there are
unmistakable warning signs that the national languages are on their way to
slow terminal disintegration if no quick action is taken. The loss is
linguistic and cultural; in the field, elders complain that proverbs and
serial tales, a vital feature of the ethnic cultures (Tsala, 1973) are no
longer known by urban youth and that their meaning is misinterpreted. A
proof of this decline is the generational variance observed in the
speakers multilingualism, which for the elder generation was away of life.
In one of the capitalsmost prominent families the languages spoken by
three generationswere recorded: the great-grandfather spoke Ewondo,Eton,
Bulu,Dwala, Basaa,Mbo, Bafusam,Bangangte,Hausa and Fulfulde, was schooled
in Ewondo and German before the First World War, learned French at the
partition of Gro Kamerun, and spoke pidgin. Only one of his daughters was
multilingual, but then could only speak Ewondo, Fulfulde and a smattering
of Dwala and Sanaga. Her own children only spoke Ewondo. Yet this
seemingly unstoppable regressive configuration is not simple:
ethnolinguistic allegiance is at its highest in this multilingual society.

National languages are constantly used in offices,with the boss and
themenial staff, at the university and the hospital, for bargaining at
themarket, with policewhen rules of the road have been flouted, for better
service at the bank  every time the speakers desire is to include or
exclude, to communicate efficiently or to prevent communication. However,
the burden of transmitting those languages, made heavier by the lack of
institutional channels, is entirely left to the family or the individual
since the language choice rests entirely with the speaker.

Ethnicity and the World Nation-State The 1961 constitution stated that the
official languages of the Federal Republic of Cameroon shall be French and
English. Fromreunification to unification, the federated states, governed
like distinct territories, had some local autonomy. Implementing official
bilingualism became more demanding with a central government. Language
rights seem restricted to the right of anglophones or francophones to have
official documents in English and French. The limits of this concept are
undeniable for the anglophone and native language speaker; it does notmean
as elsewhere (Canada, Belgium) that theminority has the right to be served
in their own language.Hailed as the only possible course, official
bilingualism was first presented as a unifying factor. Yet, all facets of
urban life are ruled by tense partisan ethnolinguistic antagonisms in
politics, religion, economics and education, compared to which the
French/English bi-ethnic rift in Canada is an exercise in rhetoric.March
1985 marked the debut of Cameroon television. The first live
broadcastswere scheduled at the same time as the Single Party Congress in
Bamenda. Held in an anglophone province for the first time since
reunification, this eventwas full of significance for the democraticwinds
of change blowing through the country after years of dictatorial
leadership. Around the newly-built Party Hall, loudspeakers echoed the
proceedings to the expectant crowd, and viewers watched intently as an
enthusiastic anglophone 126 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development journalist interviewed a cookie-selling woman: Madam, could
you tell us, what do you think of all this, isnt it great? What do youwant
us to understand?, the pouting and unsmiling woman answered in pidgin,
shrugging her shoulders, The people inside there, they talk inEnglish,
they talk in French,wedont understand anything, they should speak our
language.After a indecisive split second, the camera swiftlymoved away
both from the disconcerted journalist and from thewomans disgruntled face.
It was a clear but unheeded message to the politicians. The
nineteenth-century NationalistAwakening taught in history books as a thing
of the past is still verymuch part of our present and future. The Cameroon
situation is only an example amongmany of ethnolinguistics
asWeltanschauung and oikos. The current model can be extended to other
distant contexts in South (India, Sri Lanka) and South East Asia
(Indonesia, China) or the Americas (Mexico, Guatemala). The line between
developed and developing societies is blurred: Yaounde echoes Belfast in
Ulster, Brussels in Flanders, Pristina in Kosovo. The violent onoff armed
Corsican conflict (France), the equally violent Basque resistance (Spain)
and the seething WalloonFlemish rivalry (Belgium) are manifestations of
ethnic irredentism. The enduring role of ethnolinguistics has also been
amply demonstrated in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union and
during the recent Balkanwars.

Industrially advanced nations applied their economic and military might
and media superiority, avowedly to solve world problems, while deftly
using old ethnic allegiances  as the Ottoman and Austro-HungarianEmpires
had done  to promote the creation of client statelets. Ethnolinguistics
not only ignites guerilla and urban warfare in developing nations; even
old democracies appear powerless to deal with it without forsaking some of
theirmost cherished ideals, suspending citizens freedoms, or alienating
their constituency.

 Dr  Gisele Tchoungui ,  Quebec,Canada
http://www.icicemac.com/nouvelle/index.php3?nid=6205