FULA SPOKEN IN THE CITY OF MAROUA (NORTHERN CAMEROON)

This book investigates the speech of non-ethnic Fulfulde speakers in Maroua, Northern Cameroon, focussed on the Christian community, where the language is adopted as evangelistic instrument beside French. Three key reasons motivate our investigation.

First: Context –Fulfulde is embedded in a multilingual contact situation with Indo-European languages (French, English) and many other local languages belonging to Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo phyla.

Second: Fulfulde as lingua franca in the region. This status is unique compared to the situation in other countries such as Senegal, Chad or Sudan where it is mainly an intraethnic medium of communication.

Third: In contrast to the common perception of Fulfulde as the language of a Muslim community –here we are targeting the Christian Fulfulde speakers who share the language as well as the Bible (translated into Fulfulde) as common goods for interethnic communication in their religious activities.