Lecture: German loanwords in Cameroonian Fàŋ-Bətí languages

Basically, this study is geared towards the phonological description of the nouns the Fàŋ-Bətí languages borrowed from the German language. During the analysis, references would be made to other formal linguistic aspects of these loanword, e.g., the semantic, and morphological aspects, only where necessary. One of the methodologies will be separate the words that have been borrow from English from those which have been borrow from German.

Basically, this study is geared towards the phonological description of the nouns the Fàŋ-Bətí languages borrowed from the German language. During the analysis, references would be made to other formal linguistic aspects of these loanword, e.g., the semantic, and morphological aspects, only where necessary. One of the methodologies will be separate the words that have been borrow from English from those which have been borrow from German.

Traces of Germany’s colonial presence in Cameroon between 1884–1916, exist in the number and quality of words which Cameroonian indigenous languages, e.g. the Fàŋ-Bətí languages, borrowed from the German language. The German loanwords are one of the features found in various languages in the German formal colonial countries, eg Cameroon. The acquisition of these can be justified by variant degrees of language contact in the contexts of trading, schooling, missionary activities, and administration. The result of this language contact includes the development of full-fledged new language varieties, e.g. Pidgin-English (Mühlhäusler 1977) and creole language (Rabaul Creole German/Unser deutsch und Volker 1991, Maitz & Volker 2017), as well the augmentation of pre-existing indigenous Cameroonian languages via lexical borrowings. A considerable number of Cameroon languages integrated German loanwords during this period (Engelberg 2006, 2008; Stolberg 2015). This was the case of Búlù and Èwòndò, two Fàŋ-Bətí languages. This thesis examines the contributions of German to the Èwòndò and Búlù lexicon, and the adaptation of the borrowed words to actual structures of these indigenous Cameroonian languages.
Except for Minkeu’s and Djomo’s (2019 and 2020) works on German loanwords in languages of West Cameroon (e.g., Ghɔ`málà, Mədʉmba, ʃʉpaməm hand Yemba), the systematic documentation of German loanwords in the languages of Cameroon has been neglected in lexical research and contact linguistics so far. This work strives not only to list the words borrowed from German into the Fàŋ-Bətí languages, but also to describe its integration processes into these languages. In other words, this study aims to describe the phonological, morphological and semantic adaptations that a loanword undergoes during its integration into the language of recording.
This work is based on the triangulation method. Triangulation refers to the use of multiple methods or data sources in qualitative research to develop a comprehensive understanding of phenomena (Patton, 1999). Triangulation also has been viewed as a qualitative research strategy to test validity through the convergence of information from different sources. This work is based on the structuralism of the Geneva linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the methods of contact language.
I collected most of the data for this thesis from natural discussions with native speakers and I also carried out surveys. Additional sources of loanword examples include articles, books, bible translations and dictionaries from the two languages. Other examples in the text or examples have been made up by me, based on my knowledge of these two languages. Because I am a native speaker.

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Day: 2022-05-26
Start time: 14:00
Duration: 00:30
Room: Schuurman (1.22)
Track: Typology and Variational Linguistics
Language: en

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