Subject: Re: A lesson in Pidgin English...
would mean learning a totally foreign language! It's spoken in different parts of Africa -- Anglophone Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, etc. although it differs from country to country. It's a strangely distorted form of the language and has a grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure of it's own.
I try really hard to follow it, but it's tough! All I end up catching (if I'm really attentive, is the context; and if I'm lucky or if they intersperse with French), the gist of the conversation :)
When we were in Bafoussam, Djinga, an anglophone asked/told me "Mammy don com" (I can swear it sounded like a question :)). I thought he was asking me if Mrs Ngantou hadn't come ('Maman' is like a term of endearment and used extremely frequently - so you may "merci maman" to a lady selling vegetables, use it frequently while talking to a friend, or call out "Maman" if you want that person to help you - only for women, of course:))
But back to the story - Djinga was actually telling me that Maman was outside. "Mammy don com" means "Maman has come". If he had wanted to say "maman hasn't come", he would have said "Mammy no ba com?" -- yeah, you go figure... :)
Here are some of the other phrases I can somewhat grasp :) "Cloz doma" is "close the door" and "seventy-five" sounds nowhere close to 75 (it's savantabu or sthg). And if you wanted to say "how are you?", you'd say "how yade?" Also the intonation is really different :) Guess that's enough pidgin for you today :) As they say in pidgin, "Ashia ya" (sthg. like "take care", tho' more like the french expression "patience")
ashia ya,
Ruta
p.s. btw have got my hair braided -- into plenty of tiny braids, attached at the end with different colored rubber-bands -- it's pretty cool :)
would mean learning a totally foreign language! It's spoken in different parts of Africa -- Anglophone Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, etc. although it differs from country to country. It's a strangely distorted form of the language and has a grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure of it's own.
I try really hard to follow it, but it's tough! All I end up catching (if I'm really attentive, is the context; and if I'm lucky or if they intersperse with French), the gist of the conversation :)
When we were in Bafoussam, Djinga, an anglophone asked/told me "Mammy don com" (I can swear it sounded like a question :)). I thought he was asking me if Mrs Ngantou hadn't come ('Maman' is like a term of endearment and used extremely frequently - so you may "merci maman" to a lady selling vegetables, use it frequently while talking to a friend, or call out "Maman" if you want that person to help you - only for women, of course:))
But back to the story - Djinga was actually telling me that Maman was outside. "Mammy don com" means "Maman has come". If he had wanted to say "maman hasn't come", he would have said "Mammy no ba com?" -- yeah, you go figure... :)
Here are some of the other phrases I can somewhat grasp :) "Cloz doma" is "close the door" and "seventy-five" sounds nowhere close to 75 (it's savantabu or sthg). And if you wanted to say "how are you?", you'd say "how yade?" Also the intonation is really different :) Guess that's enough pidgin for you today :) As they say in pidgin, "Ashia ya" (sthg. like "take care", tho' more like the french expression "patience")
ashia ya,
Ruta
p.s. btw have got my hair braided -- into plenty of tiny braids, attached at the end with different colored rubber-bands -- it's pretty cool :)
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