In addition to rapidly learn French and Fulfulde, I’ve also been picking up “Kamtok” or Pidgin English from my researchers. The link above explains more about it for people who are language nerds like me, but for the rest of you, Kamtok is basically a mixture of English and the local languages of Cameroon. It’s spoken mostly in the southern part of the country but can be heard all the way up here in the Extreme-Nord from popular music from anglophone neighbors like Nigeria.
It’s quickly becoming my favorite language because a) I can understand some of it already and b) it’s a lot of fun to say. Here are a few of my favorite words/phrases:
problem no dei: there’s no problem!
on go?/!: are we going?/let’s go!
mi combi: my friend
chop: as a noun= food, as a command verb = eat
wi go chop?: are we eating (soon)?
