Languages
There are 24 major African language groups in Cameroon; additionally, English and French are official languages. Cameroonian Pidgin English is also widely spoken.
Peoples concentrated in the Southwest and Northwest Provinces — around Buea and Bamenda — use standard English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, as well as their local languages. In the three northern provinces — Adamawa, North, and Far North — either French or Fulfulde (the language of the Fulani) is widely spoken. Elsewhere, French is the principal second language, although pidgin and some local languages such as Ewondo, the dialect of a Beti clan from the Yaoundé area, have a wide currency.
Indigenous languages of Cameroon include:
- Basaa
- Bikya
- Bung
- Kanuri
- Ngumba
- Yeni
- Bamum
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Cameroon
Famous quotes containing the word languages:
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“It is time for dead languages to be quiet.”
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972)
“Wealth is so much the greatest good that Fortune has to bestow that in the Latin and English languages it has usurped her name.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)