Abstract :
Negative attitudes towards Cameroon Pidgin portray this language as an inferior and broken language that needs to be discouraged (see Kouega’s 2001 survey and Alobwede D’Epie’s 1998 report on attitudes of Cameroonians towards this language). Some scholars even consider it as the basilectal variety of Cameroon English (see, for instance, Ubanako 2008). Instead of perceiving the language as the basilectal variety of Cameroon English that lacks a well-defined structure, this paper demonstrates that it is an independent and rule-governed language, like any other language, with lexico-morphological and syntactic peculiarities that are significantly different from those of English. It is recommended that, instead of treating Cameroon Pidgin as a “structureless” and deficient variety of Cameroon English, it should be perceived as a rule-governed independent language that displays significant lexico-morphological and syntactic peculiarities that are different from those of English.
