5 being increasingly used as languages of instruction in local primary schools. Both of these
phenomena have their roots in the same combination of institutional and individual choices about language and education.
Thus the language choices being made in these communities can be interpreted as part of a larger dynamic of community-level agency. Sen 1999 describes agency as the human
capacity to act and bring about change, the results of which may be judged in terms of the agents own values and objectives regardless of their assessment in terms of external criteria.
Human rights, argues Sen, include not only those which enhance ones well being, but also those which facilitate free agency. The education choices and language promotion activities
being implemented in Bafut, Kom and Nso communities appear to fit very well into Sens notion of agency. The role of community-level agency is evident in the predominantly local
base of these activities - itself surprising, given the low expectations of minority language communities described above.
However, this is not to say that local actors are the only agents of language maintenance and use. The initiatives being taken in Bafut, Kom and Nso in favour of local
language maintenance and education also reflect the influence of interests beyond the local level, as do the communities responses to those initiatives section 6.3. The environment in
which these initiatives are being implemented has been conditioned by historical forces, current social values and a complex set of language attitudes section 1.3.
This study is intended to examine the processes of indigenous language maintenance and the use of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the Bafut, Kom and Nso
communities of Northwest Province, Cameroon, and to explore the role of local actors in these phenomena.
1.2. The language communities under study
This study is based on fieldwork done in 2002-2003 among the Bafut, Kom and Nso language communities
3
of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. Sub-Saharan Africa, and Cameroon in particular, is linguistically very rich; up to 248 African languages have been
identified in Cameroon Breton and Fohtung 1991. The Bafut, Kom, and Nso are the three largest language communities of the Northwest Province, at approximately 80,000, 150,000
3
The term language community will be used throughout this study as an alternative term to speech community. It incorporates the attributes of the speech community, but also includes geographical and cultural components.
See sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.3.
6 and 150,000 native speakers respectively in the homelands.
4
The three languages, Bafut, Kom and Lamnso,
5
belong to the Grassfields
6
Bantu language family Grimes 2003 although they are mutually unintelligible.
Within the language communities home regions, Bafut, Kom and Lamnso are the languages of choice for oral communication. The demographic concentration of speakers,
added to the sense of identity which the language embodies for those speakers, continue to facilitate what Fishman 1991:374 calls intergenerational mother-tongue transmission in
which these languages continue to be passed on from parent to child as mother tongues.
7
Bilingualism in English or Pidgin is common, particularly among adult men; however monolingualism is the norm among children. Speaking the mother tongue is a practice which
all identify positively with their cultural heritage and identity. As a former British colony along with the current Southwest Province, from 1916-
1960, the Northwest Provinces cultural and educational history was heavily influenced by the British colonial policy of indirect rule. This policy largely allowed traditional social and
authority structures to remain in place, and expressed tolerance of the use of local languages. The formal education system, for the most part the province of mission agencies, introduced
the English language to the local populations but also made space for local languages in instruction. In fact, the eventual banishment of local languages from the school system in the
late 1950s was largely the result of local demand for English-language schooling, not pressure from education authorities section 3.1.4.
4
The term homeland is used throughout this study to refer to the geographical area that each language community considers uniquely theirs. Members of the language community may live in various parts of the
country, but the homeland is that geographical region where the communitys home culture is practised and the mother tongue is spoken. Homelands do not coincide with Cameroonian political boundaries; however
homeland boundaries are well known to the communities themselves, identified principally by the language spoken from one village to the next. For the Bafut, Kom and Nso communities, the existence of the homeland is
crucial to maintenance of the local language and culture.
Thus, the concept of homeland is a locally defined one, though this particular term for it is mine rather than theirs though Baker [1996:44] also uses the term in referring to the cultural centre of a minority language
community. Of the three language communities studied, only Nso has a name for their homeland: Banso. The other two refer to the homelands by the same name as the people themselves: Kom and Bafut. I attempted to
elicit a generic name for the homeland concept from various language community members, but they were unable to provide one. This surprised me, given the crucial importance of the homelands to the cultural identity
and language maintenance of numerous language communities in the Northwest Province.
5
Lamnso is the language spoken by the Nso people. As noted above, their homeland is called Banso. For Kom and Bafut, the people, language and homeland have the same name.
6
The Grassfields is the name given by early colonial explorers to the territory now comprising Northwest Province, who encountered there large expanses of land covered with high grass.
7
This is the norm for majority languages, but for indigenous minority languages of sub-Saharan Africa the continued learning of the language as a mother tongue by new generations cannot be assumed.
7 Their colonial history, coupled with the cultural traits which have characterised the
Bafut, Kom and Nso people over the centuries of their life in the Grassfields of Northwest Cameroon, have resulted in a cultural profile that includes a complex system of traditional
social structures, influential traditional leadership, and a positive and assertive self-image. The rural demographics of these language communities have allowed the continuity of this
profile over many generations. Use of the mother tongue, at least in the home regions of these language communities, is a key component of this cultural profile.
1.3. The phenomena under study
