West African Pidgin-English: A Descriptive Linguistic Analysis With Texts and Glossary From Lhe Cameroon Area

108 A MERlCAN ANTHHOPOL,OGIST [ 74,19721
liiuqa nipliyqa ruwanqaml pleteness it provides an excellent intro-

‘if (when) I say, he’ll do it’ duction to this very important dialect of
(p. 50, 5.251) Qu ech u a.
ltumastin purikuEkankil
‘you’re walking around drinking’ West African Pidgin-English: A Descriptive
(p. 51, 5.253) Linguistic Analysis with Texts and
Glossary from lhe Cameroon Area.
Since there are other suffixes in Ayacucho G I L B E R T DONALD SCHNEIDER.
Quechua which may occur_with both verb Athens: Center for International Studies,
and substantive roots (-Za,-la, and the group Ohio University, 1966. xiii + 242 pp.,
of suffixes Parker labels “enclitics”) there tables, glossary, 9 appendices, biblio-
should be no objection to treating the graphies. $6.00 (paper). [ A thesis sub-
suffixes I-tiN/ and /-(NIn)tin/ as one. mitted t o the Hartford Seminary
Paralleling the discussion of substantive Foundation.]
and verb categories in chapters 4 and 5,
Parker discusses substantive and verb deriva- Reviewed 6y JAY D. EDWARDS
tion in chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 8 is a Louisiana State University
discussion of enclitics, chapter 9 of intona- This book is a reprint of the author’s
tion. Syntax is reserved for chapter 10, doctoral thesis, apparently unmodified. It
which comprises eight pages of the total presents a descriptive analysis of the Pidgin-
grammar. The brevity of this description English of the West Cameroon Highlands.
derives partly from the author’s purpose of Schneider is an American Baptist Missionary
being “strongly oriented towards morpho- who spent some thirteen years (1947-61) as
logy,” an orientation dictated by the highly missionary to the Mambila people. He has
agglutinative nature of the Quechua lan- published several previous works on
guage. When Parker deals with syntax, it is in Cameroon Pidgin-English including a teaoh-
a traditional structuralist way, disc ussing ing manual and a glossary.
endocentric and exocentric constructions, The book is divided into chapters
clauses and sentences. covering an introduction, phonology,
Parker’s Quechua dictionary covers 118 morphology, function classes, phrase analy-
or the 226 pages of the book. Perhaps sis, sentence analysis, a glossary, and Pidgin-
‘lexicon’ is a better way to describe it since English texts. Several appendices are
each entry has a minimal definition in included as well as a bibliography and an
English. Each entry gives the word in informant bibliography.
Quechua, then its form class, and a short One very pleasing aspect of this work is
English gloss. An asterisk procedes the entry the straightforward, logical manner in which
if it is a Spanish borrowing, and botanical the material is presented. Each point is made
terms are generally followed by their and immediately illustrated with several
scientific names. The one small problem is examples. Technical terms are almost always
the listing of alternative forms. For example clearly defined, and there is a pleasant
the form ruya is listed as (var. of yura) and deemphasis on linguistic jargon. Moreover,
one must flip back to yura t o find that IUYQ the author wisely avoids becoming entangled
means ‘plant (general)’. It would have been in theoretical arguments that might detract
quite easy for either the author or the from the descriptive purpose of the book.
editors to add the gloss for each entry, Because Schneider chooses not to employ
indicating, of course, which one was a the transformational method the book may
variant of the other so that the reader be appreciated by the interested non-linguist
would have been spared a certain amount of without much difficulty. The grammar of
frustration in using the dictionary. Pidgin-English is developed primarily on the
In conclusion, Parker’s grammar and basis of the relationships between “function
dictionary presents the most thorough classes.” Words are classified as either
analysis of Ayacucho Quechua to date. I t is “functors” (grammatical markers), or “con-
a useful reference work and, indeed, we tentives” (lexical units). The latter group
must agree with Hockett that it is a superior includes the open classes: noun, verb,
practical description. In its scope and com- adjective, and adverb, while the former
LINGUISTICS 109
subsumes determiners, pronouns, auxiliaries, exists a “common core” of broad (middle)

connectives, initiators, question words, and a Pidgin-English features shared throughout
class of “special forms,” several of which are the laboring class of West Africa, or at least
widely shared among Afro-English Creole West Cameroon. He feels it is this core which
languages (/meyk, sey, na, dey, bi, now/). permits mutual intelligibility between
Word classes are differentiated on the speakers of various ethnic and educational
basis of phonological, morphological, and backgrounds. In this assumption Schneider
syntactic criteria. A seemingly inordinate accepts the (outmoded) dogma of descrip-
emphasis is placed on the importance of tive linguistics, viz. that some ideal language
frequency counts. Perhaps the utility of this code may be discovered correctly describing
kind of information is not clear to me. “the speech” of a community or nation.
The method of data collection should be Socially oriented studies of speech have
noted. The corpus is drawn from published clearly demonstrated that this assumption
and other materials, some of which were tends to emphasize descriptive neatness at
transcribed by the author. Schneider is his the expense of ethnographic reality; that it
own principal informant. Since he first focuses attention away from the social lin-
arrived in the area at about the age of guistic processes shaping and upholding the
twenty-six it is not certain to what degree he codes they try to describe.
may be considered a “native” speaker. While Excepting this limitation, the reader is
he is certainly a “good” speaker of Pidgin- presented with a valuable examination of
English, the reader is left with some doubt Cameroon Pidgin-English-one that cannot
over the degree to which he may have drawn but increase our understanding of the
upon his own speech for the construction of relationships between the African-based
the rules of Pidgin-English. pidgin and creole languages.
This brings me to my primary reservation
regarding the book, which involves the
theoretical problern involved in representing The Languages of a Bilingual Community. J.
any language, and particularly a pidgin lan- R. RAY FIELD. Janua Linguarum. Studia
guage, with a statement aiming to describe a Memoriae Nicolai Van Wijk Dedicata.
single code or monolithic pattern. One of Series Practica, 77. The Hague & Paris:
the most salient features of the Afro-English Mouton, 1970. 118 pp., tables, 3 ap-
(and other) Creoles and Pidgins is the very pendices, bibliography, index. Dutch Gld.
great amount of code variation existing 28 (paper).
within and between speech communities. In
any such community in which social Reviewed b y JOAN RUBIN
mobility and travel are common, a profound Tulane University
emphasis is placed on the ability to mani- This volume is the result of a study done
pulate code varieties. If Cameroon Pidgin- sometime in 1958-59 of an elderly Yiddish
English is really to be considered a pidgin and English speaking community living along
language, what is the source of the nation- the beach area of Venice and Santa Monica,
wide social symbolic pressures that would California. Rayfield states the goal as the
result in speech code conformity? discussion of the processes and patterns of
Schneider recognizes the problem of code language change. Field methods used include
variation. He presents a chart (p. 10) to participant-observation, formal interviews, a
illustrate the scale of (phonetic?) variation “recollection” test, tape recordings of
from African-assimilated Pidgin, through “spontaneous” speech and Yiddish radio
broad Pidgin-English, to Anglicized Pidgin. programs.
He discusses the problem of language inter- There is something dissatisfying in read-
ference briefly (pp. 109-110), and he ing this book at a time when socio-linguistic
presents parallel texts illustrating the three methodology and analysis have received so
varieties (pp. 218-220, 225-229). He does much attention during this past decade. First
not analyze the two “non-standard” varieties of all, the data seem to have been collected
of Pidgin, nor does he discuss the problem of in a fairly haphazard manner. Although the
geographical variation in any detail. This is community reportedly consisted of twenty-
because his basic assumption is that there five hundred persons, only sixty participated

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108 A MERlCAN ANTHHOPOL,OGIST [ 74,19721

liiuqa nipliyqa ruwanqaml pleteness it provides an excellent intro-

subsumes determiners, pronouns, auxiliaries, exists a “common core” of broad (middle)

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