Tangles in tapestry of languages
By COREY BALLANTYNE
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
I still remember my first words in French very well.
When I arrived in Yaound & eacute;, I knew no French. All of Cameroon speaks French except a few western provinces, which is why we have to learn French even though the math and science teachers like me teach in English.
Peace Corps staff transported us everywhere we had to go, but after a few days, necessity drove me to talk to the hotel staff directly. I dug out my Peace Corps cheat sheet of useful French phrases and painstakingly tried to figure out how to correctly pronounce the two words I needed.
After probably half an hour, I went to the desk to stutter, "Toilet paper, please?" I also had with me a prop, an empty cardboard toilet paper cylinder. Even so, I had to point to the printed phrase for "toilet paper" because I had not pronounced it right.
It was a very uncomfortable moment. Then the French classes began, and it was "petit & agrave; petit," as people say to us here to encourage us -- "little by little."
The name game
When one of the trainees, Greg, introduced himself to his family as Gregory, they immediately wanted to call him Gori, which he protested. They agreed on Gregoire, but the trainees were so amused that he now happily answers to Gori among American friends only.
I never did get my family to switch from "Cor-AY" (Corey) to "Cor-EE" (Corie). Also, new acquaintances always think I am saying "Corine."
The language barrier caused us a lot of physical discomforts at first, like when I said, "I am thirsty," and my family ignored me because I didn't know how to say extremely, severely, or heatstroke.
I faked being about to puke -- which of course is a totally believable excuse here -- so that people would get out of my way and I could flee the stifling hot church where we were packed shoulder to shoulder.
Probing for meaning
Conversations in the beginning were often like playing detective. Our second or third day in Bandjoun, I spent an afternoon at my neighbor Susan's house, waiting for my host parents because of a misunderstanding.
We had her host brother, who speaks essentially no English, teach us about the domestic animals in French. After learning that "chickens" eat "grains of corn" and how to "kill" them, I wanted to verify whether the cats are kept for the purpose of mouse control.
The only other reason Cameroonians would feed and house an animal is if they were going to eat the animal.
Our conversation went something like this. "Why do you have the cat?" He said something that showed that he misunderstood. I asked, "Are you going to eat the cat?" "No."
"Is the cat here to eat small animals?" "No."
"What does the cat eat?" "Food."
"The cat eats small animals, doesn't it?" "Yes."
"What do you call the small animals that the cat eats?" "Kittens."
"Kittens?" I repeated, suspicious because it sounded like a word that would mean kittens. It had the root word cat with a suffix. He showed me some kittens in a box.
"No, no," I said, "the cat eats small animals. What are they called?"
"The small animals?" "Yes." "Kittens."
I sketched a mouse, and after a few more tries, we connected with the word for mouse.
"Do you have the cat because the cat eats mice?" "Yes."
Reading vs. speaking
We learn many of our French words orally, in our homes, which means that we can't spell well.
For a while, I was almost illiterate, and that would have been fine with Peace Corps officials. What we are doing is learning spoken French as fast as possible. Any listening practice helps.
In church, I still don't really understand the sermon, but I catch enough to learn or review grammar and vocabulary. In one church song, I recognized the words, "I have fallen," only because I had literally fallen the other day.
By now, after two months in Cameroon, my main worry about French is that I am fluent enough to be rude in French. Before, if we were rude, it was by accidentally saying something odd that we weren't trying to say, and people forgave our blunders.
When something was bothering us, we said nothing because we didn't know how. Now my French skills are waxing plentiful while my patience with other issues is wearing thin.
Now it is usually possible for me to say exactly what I mean even when I shouldn't -- a situation requiring great restraint.
'Maternal language'
So how far does French actually get you in Cameroon? French, or English depending on the province, is the lingua franca --the common standard. The language of one's home, one's first language -- which here is called the langue maternelle or maternal language -- is sometimes not understood outside one's hometown unless the family has adopted French in the home.
My host family speaks French at home. To my understanding -- given that my host mom explained this to me in French during my first month here -- they speak French because the parents' hometown languages are two different ones.
Maman (Mom) said she wishes the children would learn her original language but that the children prefer French. Generally in Bandjoun, the people who only speak the local language are old people.
Bits and pieces
Old people around here, French-speaking or not, are thrilled when I greet them in my few words of Ghomala. Ghomala will be useless to me when I move to my "post" in Bertoua, in the East.
If I had already known French when I came here, the trainers would have started me learning Fufulde, and that would be useful. Trainees who have passed the minimum French level but are assigned to Anglophone or English-speaking posts are learning pidgin.
An Anglophone area in Cameroon is an area where English is the agreed-upon European language for educated people. For most of our students, it is their third or fourth language: langue maternelle, pidgin, then English; or langue maternelle, pidgin, French, then English.
Pidgin is any result of a cross between colonizers' language and local languages.
By way of example, the cookbook produced by and for Peace Corps Cameroon volunteers is titled, "Chop Faynar" (pronounced "Chop Fine-ah"), which is pidgin English for "Eat Better."
At our swearing-in ceremony at the end of training -- and, by the way, the Peace Corps Cameroon community always calls training stage, from the French -- we new volunteers are expected to select people from among us to give speeches in English, French, pidgin and Fufulde.