See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/267862223

Sociolinguistic variables in the degeneracy of English in postcolonial (non-

native) contexts

Article in Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo" · January 2008
DOI: 10.1387/asju.4332

CITATIONS READS

4 523

2 authors, including:

Eric A. Anchimbe
University of Bayreuth
34 PUBLICATIONS 293 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Eric A. Anchimbe on 01 March 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY
OF ENGLISH IN POSTCOLONIAL (NON-NATIVE)
CONTEXTS

Eric A. Anchimbe and Stella A. Anchimbe

Ludwig-Maximilians (University of Munich) and The University of Yaounde I

Abstract

This paper tackles from a broad historical perspective the attitudes, media and strate-
gies of transmission, and the interplay of English and identity in the world today. It
traces the negative tendencies towards non-native Englishes resultant from British colo-
nialism to the hangovers and strategic linguistic schemes adopted during colonialism.
Here the appellations non-native, postcolonial, indigenised, New Englishes are used in-
terchangeably without purporting to make a profound evaluation of the bias linked to
them, especially the non-native. The paper concludes with the note that the claim of de-
generacy of the New Englishes was ignited by colonial linguistic projects and later fuelled
by social prejudices built basically on colonial skeletons. It has less linguistic evidence and
if any exists its roots are strongly founded in colonialism.

1. Introduction

Over the last two decades and especially between the late 1980s and early 1990s
various accusations (the Quirk concerns and the Kachru catch) were launched in
various directions. Several catchy expressions like ‘Liberation Linguistics’ (Kachru
1991) and ‘deficit linguistics’ (Quirk 1988) were coined to describe the itinerary of
English in its spread worldwide. Two basic groups cropped to the limelight: the ad-
herents of native speaker norms and the advocates of non-native speaker norms in
New Englishes contexts. Whereas the native speaker considered postcolonial Eng-
lishes as a degeneracy of his language (Quirk 1985, 1990, Abbot 1991) and called for
a common standard in these areas being the native norm, the non-native propo-
nents (Kachru 1985, 1992, D’souza 1986, Bamgbose 1998,) perceived these vari-
eties as vital proofs of the vitality of a language that had ceased to be the sole prop-
erty of its native owners.
Why were and/or are postcolonial Englishes considered degenerate? Are they ac-
tually thus? If yes, who/what is to blame? These questions are fundamental to re-
solving this query which though seems to be settled is receiving new perspectives
14 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

like that of Mufwene (2001) which considers these Englishes to have the same
structural evolution processes as the so-called native varieties. This paper visits some
of the determinant sociolinguistic variables that have been forgotten in the quest for
blame in the degeneracy claim. These include: the colonialists’ intention of (not)
teaching English to colonised peoples, their materialistic priorities, the impact of a
long existent pidgin English, the abhorrence of English as foreign (intrusive) force,
the absence of adequate native teachers, ecology and the linguistic gap, native lan-
guages and the physical background, and the (in)dispensability of the colonial
language. These factors cannot be overlooked in determining if English out of Great
Britain suffered heresy (Prator 1968) or not.

2. Colonialism and the legacy of English

If today English enjoys the status of a ‘language on which the sun never sets’ it is
exceedingly thanks to the colonial empire of Britain. Even though the later interna-
tional activity of the US in post-World War II era contributed to this spread and con-
solidation, the initial foundations were laid by Britain’s colonial expedition into Africa,
Asia and the Caribbean. The work of the religious missionaries, who combed some of
these areas even before the arrival of colonial authorities, cannot be neglected. But
whereas they limited their intervention to spreading the gospel and winning lost souls
for the kingdom of God, the colonial authority engaged in the expansion of bounda-
ries beyond Europe —a move that required much more than just a passive presence.
The colonial governments were therefore concerned, at various levels, with con-
structing in the colonised people a feeling of belonging to the colonial empire. They
were called, in the case of British colonies, “Her Majesty, the Queen’s subjects”. A
major weapon that was used, as a double-headed serpent, was language. Contrary to
pre-WW1 German annexation that made little efforts to systematically institute
German as the official language, the later British and especially French colonisations
insisted on complete education projects and language schemes predominantly (for
the British) and exclusively (the French) in the coloniser’s language. The double-
headed weapon was aimed first at inculcating in the indigenes a sense of uncondi-
tional attachment to the colonial power and second, it maintained a gap of status
quo between them and the colonialists since they, as elaborated below, had little ac-
cess to the variety used by the colonial masters. In spite of whatever strategies that
were attached to the linguistic schemes in these regions, they yielded one thing
—the emergence of postcolonial varieties of English. And as Kachru (1986: 1)
points out “the legacy of colonial Englishes has resulted in the existence of trans-
planted varieties of English having distinct linguistic ecologies— their own context
of function and usage”. Colonialism simply added another dimension to the already
complex landscape of languages in colonial contexts. It meant that English, or what-
ever language that was spread through colonial expansion, was introduced into a
contact situation with several other languages. This contact now constitutes the ba-
sic landmark for the description of postcolonial English varieties as poor, less edu-
cated, degenerate approximations of the native. Let us start with a cursory look at
some of the attitudes expressed towards these varieties of English.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 15

3. Attitudes towards the New Englishes

The very many appellations coined for varieties of English that took root after
the colonial adventure of Britain is ample proof of the divergent nature of attitudes
towards them. These Englishes qua non-native, new, indigenised, localised, nativised
Englishes represent the often ironically hailed diversity of English but limitedly ac-
cepted local norms and standards that accrue therefrom. What therefore is responsi-
ble for this?
In and out of regions where the New Englishes are spoken, many negative asser-
tions have been advanced about them. To Kachru (1982: 66) the first enemy of the
New Englishes is the nation states in which these Englishes are used. This has ren-
dered the varieties more or less “linguistic orphans in search of their parents”. These
parents cannot be the native varieties because there exist many differences between
them. They could and perhaps only have foster parents through their acceptance
within these regions. The second major enemy has been the native speaker who
seems biased and influenced by the glimpses of victory through colonisation to think
his language must not be equally shared with the colonised. These two perceptions,
which from a superficial view show the defence of one’s position, project two major
classifications of attitudes towards the New Englishes. One, the native, is highly
hinged on colonial hangovers and the other, the non-native, is fuelled by realities in
language change and transmission. Fig. 1 below recaptures this rift in perception.

FIG. 1. Perceptions of Postcolonial Englishes

The classification in the diagram above shows how important a variable colonial-
ism is in the perception of varieties of English and their media of diffusion in the
world. It further indicates how non-linguistic parameters have been used in brand-
ing some varieties as deficit or disintegrated whereas language contact, the claim of-
ten used to justify this, is a constant residue of all languages whether colonially gen-
erated or not. Moreover, “linguistic change occurs even when no contact of
languages is involved” (Mufwene 2001: 11). It becomes clear that whatever changes
or variation occurred to English out of its native ecology forms part of the evolu-
16 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

tionary process of any natural language. It is not, as has been claimed, the exclusive
outcome of non-native contexts nor the destruction of a too perfect language by im-
perfect users.

3.1. The Native vs Non-Native Divide

The battle of standards that was at the centre of debates on the New Englishes in
the 80s and 90s was grossly rooted on the great divide of native and non-native
speakers. While Quirk (1985, 1990), Abbot (1991) and so forth called for a mono-
chrome standard both in writing and speech around the world (however difficult this
could be), Kachru (1985: 92, 96) insisted on regions and nations developing individ-
ual standards according to the tastes and dictates of their societies. Quirk’s (1985)
preoccupation is that postcolonial nations do not have enough functions for English
and so must not be granted the right to develop a standard for a language that they
would not be able to master given their multilingual statuses. This position is tanta-
mount to the fear of seeing English degenerate. It is further disputable that English
has fewer functions in postcolonial countries. It is nevertheless the official language
and is the major medium linking these countries to the rest of the world.
Even earlier than this period, Hocking (1974) made a rather unrepentant decla-
ration about what the standard should be. To him, “the point is that what is correct
in a language is just what native speakers of the language say. There is no other stan-
dard”. His view, which perhaps influenced later proponents of this inclination,
awards the native speaker an almighty control of his language. It confirms Chom-
sky’s (1965) consideration of the native speaker as one who can make valid judge-
ments about what is well-formed or ungrammatical in his language. Although this is
unquestionable, its assumption in the context of postcolonial Englishes is too es-
tranged to make any much meaning. Furthermore, Hocking (1974) does not realise
as Trudgill (1998: 35) does that “most native speakers of English in the world are
native speakers of some non-standard variety of the language”. In all, with the
amount of literature produced on this topic a great consensus seems to have been
reached which favours local norms over foreign ones. The defence of a language that
ceased to be the sole property of Britain yielded to the recognition of ecologically
pertinent factors that rendered and continue to render homogeneity a fairy dream.

3.2. The ELT Industry and the claim of heresy

The ELT (includes ESL, EFL, TESOL, etc.) industry, which today is among the
largest and fastest growing, was at its genesis in the 1960s shelled with horrifying
missiles born predominantly from the “native speaker’s fear of seeing his language
disintegrate in the hands of (or shall we say, on the lips of ) non-native users”
(Kachru 1985: 34). This fear, a seemingly coordinated appendix to the colonial
strategy of not teaching English too well or at all to colonised peoples, retarded
many genuine attempts at vehiculating the language especially in former British
colonies. As table 2 shows far less students were engaged in education in English in
1974 as opposed to later years when the stigma of colonialism started disappearing.
To Prator (1968) for instance, it was pure heresy to teach English to non-natives
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 17

and even worse to grant them the right to ‘own’ a standard or norm. He (1968: 459)
emphatically declares that
…the heretical tenet I feel I must take exception to is the idea that it is best,
in a country where English is not spoken natively but is widely used as a medium
of instruction, to set up the local variety of English as the ultimate model to be
imitated by those learning the language.
The issue Prator (1968) seems not to be comfortable with is not English
spreading but it spreading to non-natives who will not be able to use it properly.
He fears the language would disintegrate or degenerate if allowed to evolve as an in-
dependent model. The cline of fears and exasperations expressed prompts Bamiro
(1994: 58) to segment attitudes towards postcolonial Englishes into two schools.
The first is the “sociolinguistic reality school” represented principally by Kachru
and other advocates of the New Englishes. This school argues for the recognition
and unprejudiced acceptance of the New Englishes as part of the diversity of the
English language world. It posits above all that English has adopted and adequately
sipped into the sociocultural environments in which it is used as a second language
to a point that judging it in terms of native standards is absolutely unfair and
illogical. The second school which Bamiro (1994: 58) terms the “pedagogic unreal-
ity school” and represented by its major exponents Quirk (1985, 1988, 1990), Ab-
bot (1991) upholds that the “New Englishes are nothing but grammars or dialects
of errors which are bound to have deleterious effects on the educational systems of
many countries where English is used as a second or foreign language”. The degen-
eracy claim studied in this paper was extensively sustained by proponents of this
school. Their negative attitude towards non-native speakers was perhaps founded
on the hierarchical order set in place by colonialism that equated colonised peoples
to tabula rasas on whom the civilisation of Europe had to be written. Besides this,
any meaningful assessment of a language out of its native habitat and spread
and/or taught by non-native speakers must make enough allusion to change and
variation. This like any other type of adaptation (human, environmental, etc.)
foregrounds the replication of the new environment on the language which in ef-
fect is a favourable mid-range reconciliation between the foreign status of the lan-
guage and its new habitat rather than a disintegration of the language as such. This
reconciliation, often treated as degeneracy, was in part promoted by some sociolin-
guistic variables beyond the control of the non-native learners. Some of these have
been outlined below.

4. Some sociolinguistic variables in postcolonial English claim

If English can be said to be degenerate in postcolonial contexts, the main blame

cannot however be directed at the non-native users. This is because the colonial ad-
ministration through whom English was substantially transmitted foiled the
process with a series of strategic projects that unilaterally cared only for their
prominence in power and authority in the regions. Change or subsequent evolu-
tion of the language in these areas was therefore conditioned by these factors. The
18 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

major ones are studied below. While the following variables are considered impor-
tant to the path of English in these contexts, the ecological factor is not treated in
any lesser importance.

4.1. Colonial (mis)conceptions of (not) teaching English well

Irrefutably, language is power or power takes a more decisive turn when it wields
language. Language is an important attribute in identity creation and consolidation.
It is moreover an effective tool for in-group exclusion and definition. These hints
certainly guided the colonialists, among them the British, in the adoption of an in-
effective language teaching approach in colonial areas. Whatever language they used
with the indigenes was only as good as it made clearly evident the gap and distance
between them and the indigenes. Any attempt at using the colonised peoples’ lan-
guage or letting them full access to the colonisers’ language was interpreted as tanta-
mount to levelling the great mounts of master-servant, ruler-ruled, privileged-un-
privileged, modern-primitive, advanced-backward, etc distinction that existed
between them. As Kachru (1986: 22) puts it, the colonialists “insisted on not teach-
ing their language too well to ‘non-group’ Asians or Africans, the underlying idea
being that the colonizer’s code, if shared equally with the colonised, would reduce
the distance between the rulers and the ruled”. This was not exclusively the strategy
of the British alone but of most of the colonialists. The Germans in Cameroon ex-
posed this same attitude. Amvela (2001: 206) states that “some [German] officials
also feared that the use of English may encourage Cameroonians to behave as the
equals of their colonial masters”.
The immediate outcome of this policy was the explosive growth of and re-
liance on Pidgin English: in Nigeria, Ghana, West Cameroon, etc, lingua francas:
Swahili in Tanzania and Kenya, Krio in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Tok Pisin in
Papua New Guinea and so forth. This growth was facilitated by the colonialists
who intentionally promoted the use of these languages. In their daily communica-
tion with the indigenes they preferred a pidgin, Creole, indigenous language, as
the case may be, in a bid to refurbish the master-servant relationship between
them. In the case of East Africa, Abdulaziz (1991: 395) reports that “British set-
tlers were most reluctant to use English with their native servants and with
Africans in general, as they believed that this knowledge might ‘spoil’ them in the
master-servant relationship that existed”. Native languages also flourished but
were checked by the generally excessive number in rather small communities such
that pidgins, creoles and lingua francas were often invoked for wider communica-
tion. This not withstanding, the linguistic foundation laid during colonialism that
constituted in less effective usage of the language continued to thrive decades af-
ter. Many souring descriptions have been given which point to the state of English
in these contexts. One of them is Gyasi’s (1990: 24) who bemoans: “English in
Ghana is sick. The cancerous tumours are numerous: wrong collocation; false
concord; poor spelling … mispronunciation; … wrong omission or insertion of
articles, misuse of preposition…”. Gyasi’s (1990) “cancerous tumours” might sim-
ply be some of the leftovers of the colonial experiment of unteaching or misteach-
ing English as a power regulatory mechanism. While also accepting that societies
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 19

be granted the right to use language according to their demands and tastes, which
accounts for much of the divergence in English speech today, the colonialists’ im-
pact cannot be altogether sidelined. Clearly, therefore, the claim that English suf-
fered heresy or degeneracy in postcolonial or non-native contexts is prejudiced and
socially motivated. As shown on fig. 1, it is simply an attempt to maintain colo-
nially drawn skeletons.

4.2. Colonialists’ notion of hierarchy through language

Societal stratification is often linked to and/or represented in its language. For
instance, the most prestigious dialects or standard of the language is often identified
with the socially privileged. Trudgill (1998: 39) in defining Standard English makes
clear that “the further down the social scale one goes, the more non-standard forms
one finds”. What this means is that the various strata that can be identified in soci-
ety can as well be graded on a linguistic ladder. European colonialists adopted this
linguistic ladder framework to widen the distinction gap and to create a social elite
situated between them and the common masses. As R.R. Roy and T.B. Macauley
(1835) observe, teaching English to colonised people was directed at putting in
place “a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern, a
class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in
words and in intellect” (qtd Kachru 1982: 355).
A new stratum is being added to an already diversified society. In the first place,
this suits what is discussed below as deprivation from normal exposure to the lan-
guage. It further represents the refusal of belonging to a language that is bound to
be one’s official code of communication. The creation of such a class of people com-
pletely subservient to the colonial administration was motivated by fear of subver-
sion and the desire to eternally assimilate and subjugate the colonised. So as Mazrui
and Mazrui (1996: 272) clearly state, “many European settlers regarded the teaching
of English to ‘natives’ as a potentially subversive force”. Whereas military force
played a great role in physically subjugating colonised people, the language policies
(whether outlined or implied) adopted a psychological strategy that limited the
range of perfection and proficiency of the out-group. This meant poor acquisition
and subsequently poor performance in the language. Anybody, whether colonised or
not, subjected to such circumstances would end up with the same or highly similar
results. The poor rendition of the language must not be blamed on origin or status
of speakers but rather on such mitigating situations as conditions of acquisition or
transmission, variety of the language involved and the length of the period of trans-
mission.

4.3. Material priorities over linguistic projects

The spread of colonial languages to (ex)colonial regions was not an exclusively
linguistic experiment but a fall off from the materialistic incursion. The Green
Revolution brought Europe to a sophisticated level with a flourishing industrial
output that constantly needed more markets and more raw materials to keep it
alive. Markets and raw materials were then found in the territories of Africa, Asia
20 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

and the Caribbean. However, this expansion coincided with the expansion of reli-
gious missions. So while the colonialists sought for material products and the ex-
pansion of political empires the religious missionaries embarked on preaching the
gospel. They adopted whatever language could facilitate this objective. This ranged
from Pidgin English, native languages to educated English. It must be mentioned
that the British colonial administration in Cameroon benefited tremendously from
the work of the missionaries who were in the region even before the German an-
nexation of 1884.
The priority of material interests can be seen in the Germans’ toleration of Pid-
gin English and English inasmuch as these languages facilitated the acquirement of
raw materials and the construction of roads, railways and plantations. It is interest-
ing that the pre-annexation undertaking and the 1884 annexation treaty between
German authorities and Douala chiefs of Cameroon were both done in English and
not German (see texts in Amvela 2001: 219-221). The English colonialists were not
different from the Germans. They were more interested in consolidating the wealth,
given the high costs of WWI, than in putting in place a solid linguistic project
based on perfect English transmission. This is further explained by the fact that they
tolerated (as opposed to the French who banned) education in native languages;
themselves encouraged the use of Pidgin English in several sectors, for instance,
trade and religion. Added to the biased vision exposed above, the lack of a devoted
linguistic project that matched the creeds of allegiance to the queen and the British
Empire recited by the colonised subjects meant a divergent acquisition of the lan-
guage. This divergent acquisition, which however depicts a natural situation of lan-
guage acquisition and evolution, has unfortunately been received as a destitution of
the language and as, in the words of Whitworth (1907: 6) “linguistics flights …
which jar upon the ear of the native Englishman”. Miraculously, the native colonial-
ists’ decision to unteach or misteach English as power regulatory mechanism has
been forgotten. Non-native background and the status of secondness of the colonial
subjects constructed during colonialism have been highlighted as sources of the di-
vergence in English usage around the world. A divergence that has been generally
treated as a destruction, degeneracy, demeaning or what Prator (1968) calls heresy of
the language.

4.4. Impact and pull of Pidgin and/or Creole Englishes

Trade colonial expansion that debuted in the late 15th century heralded by Por-
tuguese merchants installed Pidgin English along the coast of West Africa (Schnei-
der 1974, Mbassi-Manga 1976, Mbangwana 1983). Although the Spanish, Swedes
and Dutch were also involved their appearance on this coast was less regular com-
pared to that of the Portuguese who engaged in the trade of diverse articles includ-
ing spices (pepper), gold and slaves. When the British finally replaced the Por-
tuguese on this coast following the build up to the abolition of slave trade, one of
the pidgins that was used by English privateers on Portuguese boats gained more ex-
pansion. As rightly explained by Mbangwana (1983: 80),
inasmuch as the British were the first advocates of the abolition of the slave trade
and at the same time practised the ‘factory and trust’ system of trade, which
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 21

brought them into very close contact with the native inhabitants, a language
contact interaction emerged which served as a linguistic medium of communica-
tion.

The work of the missionaries further compounded this medium since it, beyond
the scope of the notoriously many and diversified native languages, provided a
broader spectrum of communication with the indigenes.
The arrival of the Germans in Cameroon after the 1884 Berlin conference did
not create any much difference in the place and vitality of Pidgin English. Similarly
the end of the slave trade marked the emergence of a more stable and mother
tongue-like variety of Pidgin English. This was in communities such as Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Fernando Po basically made up of resettled slaves. Menang (1979)
advances that the variety of pidgin used by these communities eventually turned out
to be not just a medium of contact and communication but a practical mother
tongue for a group of divergent people who found themselves bound to live forever
together. The German colonialists did much to impose their language on the Came-
roonian natives, opening German-medium schools in Douala (1887), Victoria
(1897), Garoua (1906) and Yaounde (1908); declaring German the only language
in all education-related transactions after the Douala Educational conference
(1907); issuing a special ordinance on April 24th 1910 “with the stipulation that
grants-in-aids from the government to mission schools would be restricted only to
those who adopted the government school programme based on German…”
(Chumbow 1980: 284) and officially making the use of English illegal by March
1913 (Amvela 2001). In spite of all these rather radical measures, the colonial ad-
ministration was unable to proceed in German given that it meant dismantling the
whole edifice of Pidgin English constructed over several centuries. So it literally tol-
erated its use in the plantations, the road and railway construction sites, and some-
times used it as a contact code with the population.
When the First World War ended and Britain was rewarded with Cameroon,
Pidgin English rather grew faster following the free language system adopted by the
British. Even in ESL, the aim was not to recreate British English in colonised areas.
Some reasons have been advanced above. Inasmuch as English was interpreted as a
socially superior language its encroachment to the circles of communal and inter-
personal transaction was limited. It is in this domain that Pidgin English triumphs.
Its long existence as a contact and friendship code gives it more recurrence than
English and partly explains why English expression is often considered dwindling or
non-proficient. The table below exposes proficiency in these languages through abil-
ity to speak them. While only 1% of 433 people in Bamenda speaks only English,
as much as 24% speak only Pidgin English and 43% both. This indicates that many
more come into contact with Pidgin English than do with English; as many meet
Pidgin English before any contact with English.
It is worth noting that all of the towns surveyed above are in the English-speak-
ing part of Cameroon. Interestingly, more people speak French and Pidgin English
in all of these towns than speak only English. This indicates that the lack of profi-
ciency in the language, if this can be equated to the degeneracy claim, must be inter-
preted as a matter of language priority by the users rather than as a basic feature of
22 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

TABLE 1. Percentage of adults who speak official languages and Pidgin English in Cameroon (1983)

No. English English, French Total

Pidgin English
Town of & Pidgin & & % of
only only
resp. Pidgin French Pidgin population

Victoria . . . . . . 371 29 50 16 2 — 97
Buea . . . . . . . . 185 11 49 29 11 — 100
Kumba . . . . . . 364 38 46 10 4 — 98
Mamfe. . . . . . . 87 29 53 16 2 — 100
Bamenda . . . . . 433 24 43 20 11 1 99
Kumbo . . . . . . 99 38 43 11 2 — 94

Source: curled from Koenig (1983: 51)

postcolonial Englishes. In Kumba, a predominantly business town along the Nige-

ria-Cameroon border, for instance, the difference between the pidgin only percent-
age (38%) and the English and pidgin percentage (46%) is less than 10%. But this
is far larger in administrative headquarters like Bamenda where the difference is
19%, Buea 38% and Victoria (present day Limbe) 21%. In these towns reside state-
employed workers, students and workers in education-related private jobs. Degener-
acy, if at all must be admitted should therefore be founded on the preferences speak-
ers give to languages in their quest for economic survival. It is not exclusively
depended on native and non-native statuses as claimed by Hocking (1974), Prator
(1968), Quirk (1990), Abbot (1991) among others.

4.5. Abhorrence of English as icon of invasion and exploitation

Like any intrusive force in communities of people, English suffered repudiation
and abhorrence in colonial and postcolonial states. Such a staunch resistance to the
colonial languages took strength from the fact that the African continent was consid-
ered an empty set into which colonial civilisation with all its components had to be
stuffed. For instance, the tabula rasa approach of the French that “aimed at assimilat-
ing or absorbing France’s colonial subjects to the point where they would actually be
Frenchmen linguistically, culturally, politically and legally” (Fanso 1989: 65), was cer-
tainly bound to meet with opposition. It was like wiping out any footage of the pre-
colonial heritage and replacing it, like writing on a virgin sheet of paper, with the Eu-
ropean cultural and linguistic heritage. The expression of abhorrence ranged from
prohibiting African children from attending European schools, humiliating those
who spoke English in non-official contexts to refusal to use the colonial language in
certain (official) contexts. In Ghana, for example, Kwasi Duodu (1986: 3) in his sup-
port for the use of a Ghanaian language as official medium declares.
If we can’t decide on one Ghanaian language for the country after twenty-
nine years of independence, then why shouldn’t a borrowed language be
‘butchered’ … the youth, like many other silent Ghanaians, is protesting against
an imposed language which prevents him from expressing himself in his own
tongue.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 23

Duodu (1986) implies that the youth, like many other Ghanaians are resisting
English. Of course resistance would lead to lack of proficiency in the language since
it is considered alien. Tchoungui (1983: 114) exposes the outcome of the adoption
of a French-English bilingualism policy in Cameroon. To her, it “evinces a remark-
able inability to live or to think out of well trodden colonial tracks, it actually opts
for more educational wastage as children scrambling for more education are
schooled in languages other than their own, or worse, in languages alien to their
own cultures”. This negative perception, that reached fever pitch at the close of
colonialism in the late 50s and early 60s, increased community and missionary work
in the direction of promoting indigenous languages. This in part explains why up to
166 of the 270 living languages in Cameroon have been standardised (Ethnologue).
However when national unity became threatened by the continuous empowerment
of native languages and its corresponding political and social superiority, education
in indigenous languages was banned in Cameroon in 1965. This ban that was en-
forced by forceful actions including confiscation of technical equipment and peda-
gogical environment, for instance in Dschang in 1966 (see Momo 1997), increased
abhorrence for the official languages thereby limiting the extent of attachment to
them. In this light therefore, lesser people became interested in English and the few
who engaged in learning it did so with a rather reckless attention.

4.6. Absence of native teachers

Given that Britain practised distance administration with fewer British men on
colonial ground, there was the stark absence and paucity in the number of native
teachers to teach English to the indigenes. Moreover, the few that were available
were too busy with colonial exploitation schemes to dedicate much time to teaching
English to many Africans or Asians. This explains why only scores —a generation of
interpreters— were educated and charged with vehiculating the language further.
Similarly the missionaries easily adopted Pidgin English or Creoles and in some
other cases the indigenous languages to spread the gospel.
If it can be truly claimed that English suffered degeneracy in these contexts, a
substantial blame must be directed at the colonial authority for not providing
enough native teachers to properly teach it. But if the language continues to be
taught by non-natives as it has been since the end of colonialism, it would be bound
to reflect the ecology of the areas in which it is being used. As reiterated below, this
is not negative or detrimental; it simply adds a creative dimension to the language
that exposes its vitality and adaptability.

4.7. Deprivation from exposure to English

It is undoubtedly true that colonialism was central to the spread of English. It is
however also true that colonialism, as shown above, moulded the cline of perfor-
mance and proficiency in the language. In the transplanted native varieties of Eng-
lish, transplanted so many centuries ago —America, Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, the colonised people were allowed sufficient access to the language. There
was, especially in the cases of America and Australia, the settlement of substantial
24 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

native English speakers. This colonisation pattern is different, in terms of its linguis-
tic agenda from later ones witnessed in Nigeria, Kenya, India, etc, where “sparser
colonial settlements maintained the precolonial population in subjection and al-
lowed a proportion of them access to learning English as a second, or additional lan-
guage” (Leith 1996: 181). The limitation of access to educated English meant the
acquisition of the language in whatever manner possible and with whatever imper-
fection that could bring.
Even long after the colonialists were gone, many people were still far from ex-
posed to the language. As late as 1974, education in English was still not completely
accessible even in British ex-colonies that had English either as the only official lan-
guage (Nigeria, Ghana) or together with other language(s) (Kenya, Tanzania, India,
Cameroon and South Africa). This is evident in the following statistics, which reveal
the number of students enrolled in English-medium schools in six British ex-
colonies. Of a total of 195.452 million people only 14.9% (29.3 million) of the stu-
dents were enrolled in classes with formal instruction in English. This number sim-
ply adds to that of other users of the language.

TABLE 2. Access to English in 1974

Total pop est. 1974 Students enrolled

Country Percentage
(million) in English (million)

India . . . . . . . . . . . 90.486 17.6 19.4

Nigeria . . . . . . . . . 52.895 3.9 7.3
South Africa. . . . . . 22.458 3.5 15.5
Kenya . . . . . . . . . . 11.208 1.7 15.1
Ghana . . . . . . . . . . 8.631 1.6 18.5
Tanzania . . . . . . . . 9.774 1.0 10.2

Total . . . . . 195.452 29.3

The population estimates above are curled from the United Nations Environ-
mental Programme (UNEP) African Population Database while the student enrol-
ment statistics are supplied by Gage and Ohonnessian (1974, 1977). The total
populations exceedingly drown the numbers of those studying in a language that is
considered official to the nations. Only 3.9 million students out a total population
of 52.895 million in Nigeria and a similarly small number, 3.5 million of
22.458 million people in South Africa, were added to the existing number of users
of the language in 1974. Although such factors as the lack of schools, insufficiency
of teachers, lack of educational motivation and so forth can be used to explain the
insignificant number of those learning English, it can also be blamed on the colo-
nial policy. This policy created a linguistic elite that served as a link between colo-
nialists and the colonised. It drew the line between the languages or varieties re-
served for them and those open to the indigenes. This implicit distinction distanced
English from the people who thereafter considered it the colonialists’ code. This is
especially the case in Tanzania and Kenya where (Ki)Swahili was promoted even
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 25

more than English. It is not therefore surprising that only 10.2% and 15.1% of the
total population was engaged in English instruction in Tanzania and Kenya respec-
tively. For Kachru (1985) the above figures are impressive. However, the truth be-
hind them can only be judged if the length of the colonial expedition is revoked.
British colonial expansion in all of these areas lasted above half a century. Besides
the work of the missionary churches and that of the colonial administration in insti-
tuting education and literacy, much was left undone given that only a microscopic
elite benefited from it. And as said above it was directed at creating an educated mi-
nority elite for the expansion of the colonial administration and for the continuity
of the colonial heritage even after independence.
The deprivation set up at colonialism and inherited at independence accounts in
part for the varieties of English spoken in these areas. It thwarted every possible
prospect of native-like varieties taking root and mounted the foundation on which
these indigenised varieties are built. However, it also accentuated the cry of degener-
acy of the language that was issued in the late 70s and 80s and re-echoed in the 90s.
According to estimates by Graddol (1997: 11), while English received a tremendous
increase in users around the world, second language users still numbered far less
compared to the populations of their countries. How can it be explained that less than
half (43 million) of the population of Nigeria (90 million) speak English although it
(up till 1995) was the only official language? The following table further reveals how
stagnant percentages of users of English have been.

TABLE 3. Speakers of English as second language (1997)

Total pop. Est. 1990s English users

Country Percentage
(millions) (millions)

India . . . . . . . . . . . 130.985 37.0 28.20

Nigeria . . . . . . . . . 90.987 43.0 47.20
South Africa. . . . . . 37.066 10.0 26.90
Kenya . . . . . . . . . . 22.214 2.576.0 11.50
Ghana . . . . . . . . . . 14.466 1.153.0 7.90
Tanzania . . . . . . . . 16.227 3.0 18.40

Total . . . . . 311.945 96.729.0 31.08

Of a total population of 311.945 million people from the six countries only
96.729 million (31.08%) understand English. Ghana records the least score with
only 1.153 (7.9%) of its 14.466 million population being able to use English even
though it is the official language. Only less than a third of the populations of India
and South Africa, and even less than a quarter of Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania, as
shown on Graddol’s (1997: 11) statistics can be considered second-language speak-
ers of English. This does not of course mean the rest of the population are first-lan-
guage speakers because in essence there are none except for a handful in South
Africa. Although this might be explained by the fact that the official languages are
used basically for official functions that do not often concern the common man,
26 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

these statistics beat down the long-sung story of literacy. It further lays bare the lim-
ited initiatives made to promote the use and extensive acquisition of the language.
One of the outcome of this has been the common believe that English in these areas
is deficient or degenerate.

4.8. The gap between foreign English and the sociocultural environment
Languages like living organisms evolve in a given ecology. This ecology, which
has an internal and external component, regulates in several consistent ways the life
and evolution of the language. Ecology simply refers to the sociocultural and geo-
physical landscape within which a language evolves. Mufwene (2001: xii) arrives at a
distinction between the external ecology that covers the socio-economic and ethno-
graphic environment together with “the contact setting and power relations between
groups of speakers” on the one hand and the internal ecology that extends to “the
nature of the coexistence of the units and principles of a linguistic system before and
/or during the change” on the other. Both are equally significant to judging how
elaborately a language has changed in its new habitat. The New Englishes basically
emerged from the transportation of English to new ecologies where it had to exist.
Its successful existence meant it had to adapt to and adopt from these new ecologies
in order to represent them properly. Kachru (1992: 2) clarifies that
once English was adopted in a region … it went through various reincarnations
that were partly linguistic and partly cultural. The reincarnations were essentially
caused by the new bilingual (or multilingual) settings and by the new contexts in
which it has to function.
Reincarnation or nativisation or indigenisation (it has been termed differently),
of English in these contexts serves to fill the gap caused by the foreign status of the
language in its new context of existence. It has to reflect and be reflected by the
physical realities and the sociocultural emblems of the society of which it is now an
integral part. Along the West African coastline several vocabulary items are shared
which do not belong to the British English vocabulary. These include bitter-leaf,
corn-chaff, bush-meat, head-tie, watch-night, chewing-stick and so forth (see An-
chimbe 2004). Although all of these words are English if treated individually, they
have been compounded in a way that reflects the region in which they are used. It is
no longer strange to find native language words and other neologisms created to fill
communicative gaps in second or foreign language contexts. The recreation of the
ecology in language may extend beyond simply the creation and addition of new
words to larger linguistic units as collocational preferences, analogical creations, sen-
tence structure and discourse patterns. It might and often generally result in exten-
sive restructuring of the language to suit the communicative habits of the speakers.
So restructuring in this manner must not be pro rata to non-native or postcolonial
heritage. Mufwene (2001) and Schneider (2000) uphold that the restructuring pat-
terns are basically the same in all languages whether termed Creole, koinés, pidgins,
non-native or native. In a nutshell therefore the evolution of the New Englishes can-
not be singled out as cases of degeneracy or deficiency since English itself has had as
much contact in Britain as any of the Englishes out of Britain.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 27

Restructuring follows several ways. In the New Englishes, it adopts predomi-

nantly a straightening approach. It seeks to name the referent as accurately and de-
scriptively as possible. One common example is the ascription of the s-plural to
non-count nouns such as advices, furnitures, equipments just to name these. So rather
than use many words just to create plural as in pieces of advice, most New Englishes
simply apply the s-plural. This reduces the number of words (advices) and above all
resolves a long (and perhaps illogical) explanation for exemption to this rule. In the
table below, different words for the same referent from three Englishes are pre-
sented. These are Cameroon English, British English and American English (see
Mbangwana 2002: 123-130 for more). Different restructuring processes account for
the differences in the appellations. In CamE concierge may have been supplied by
French, roommate, face towel and cargo train by exact descriptions of either the refer-
ent or what they are used for. A roommate is someone with whom you share the
same room (see also classmate, age mate, desk mate, etc.); a face towel is used in clean-
ing the face and a cargo train carries cargo. Each appellation follows the priorities of
the society.

TABLE 4. Lexical variation in three varieties of English

British English American English Cameroon English

(BrE) (AmE) (CamE)

House of Commons House of Representatives House of Assembly

Lodger Roomer Roommate
Public prosecutor District attorney State counsel
Town hall City hall Municipal/City Council hall
Face flannel Washcloth Face towel
Goods train Freight train Cargo train
Pig-sty Hog-pen Pig fence
Caretaker Janitor Concierge
Sitting room Living room Parlour
Vest Undershirt Singlet

The differences in appellation do not make the varieties inappropriate media of

communication within their communities. They do not show either whether any of
the varieties is less effective than the other(s). What we must ride home with is that
languages and/or varieties possess the capabilities of reacting to and adapting to the
changes and tastes of the societies in which they are. Such changes or adaptations do
not necessarily indicate negative turns in the language because if a language must
spread, it must also be ready to change. Many factors have been cited above to illus-
trate how the change in the New Englishes, which has been interpreted by some bi-
ased linguists as degeneracy, was triggered by certain sociolinguistic variables. But is
this true?
28 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

5. Is postcolonial English degenerate?

After the above mitigations on the status of English, the overall question is, is
postcolonial English degenerate? A legitimate answer to this question is found be-
yond the realms of social prejudice and bias that over the years veiled any genuine
investigation. As Singh et al. (1995), Mufwene (2001) among others truly demon-
strate there is adequate linguistic evidence that non-native English varieties evolve in
the same evolutionary patterns as other normal (native) varieties. Language develop-
ment, evolution, change and the contact variable are common to all language con-
texts not only the postcolonial. To consider them detrimental only in the postcolo-
nial contexts is to shut out the many processes involved and to put into question
theories of language evolution and change. It is simply the phobia of our language in
their hands.
The phobia of the native speaker hatched social prejudices towards these vari-
eties. Moreover colonial schemes, as explained above, moulded the cline of change.
The prejudice gave the impression that non-native Englishes posed intelligibility ob-
stacles. This orchestrated cautionary pieces of advice like the following from Trudg-
ill and Hannah (1994: 122) who advance that “native speakers travelling to areas
such as Africa or India should make the effort to improve their comprehension of
the non-native variety of English ... rather than argue for a more English-type Eng-
lish of English in these areas”. In a similar manner, Adegbija and Bello (2001: 105)
advise that “as speakers of English move from one part of the English-speaking
world to another, they need to make greater allowances for apparently unorthodox
Englishes, senses and usages of words in their English lexical repertoire”. Indis-
putably the focus here is on native speakers and the fear that they may not under-
stand non-native or what Adegbija and Bello (2001) term “unorthodox Englishes”.
No measure is taken for non-native speakers travelling to native or rather “orthodox
Englishes” areas, whereas intelligibility is a mutual exchange and not the ultimate
burden of the non-natives. This technically implies that the degenerate variety (as
postcolonial English is believed to be) must live up to the normal —a perspective
that has transformed research in the New Englishes to panoramic judgements of
how deviant from native (British) English these varieties are.

6. Conclusion

Postcolonial Englishes are not as rough as thought. Instead there exists more
logicality and easy-to-apply rules in these varieties, like the s-plural above, than in
British English. While the sociolinguistic variables studied in this paper ignited a
process of change and evolution, the ecology rolled the dice as in all contexts of lan-
guage contact. These simply point to the vivacity of the language. So, “rather than
act as if the language is being debased”, Yule (1996: 64) proposes that “we might
prefer to view the constant evolution of new terms as a reassuring sign of vitality
and creativeness in the way a language is shaped by the needs of its users”. Of course
this foregrounds a broad range of differences across societies that use English. Dif-
ference of this nature has often been generally interpreted as a breakdown in inter-
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 29

national communication. This has not been the case, at least in writing, because the
whole English language world is intricately linked through the language in educa-
tion, diplomacy, publications, trade and business, aviation and so forth. Ogu
(1986: 93), therefore rightly concludes that “difference or variation is not a defi-
ciency, receptiveness is not necessarily a submission and that complementarity is
what makes relationships between languages [varieties and users] possible and plea-
surable”.

References

Abbot, G., 1991, “English across Cultures: The Kachru Catch”, English Today 7 (4), 55-
57.
Abdulaziz, M. H., 1991, “East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya)”. In Chesire, J. (ed.), English
around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: CUP, 391-401.
Adegbija, E. and J. Bello, 2001, “The Semantics of ‘okay’ (OK) in Nigerian English”,
World Englishes 20 (1), 99-106.
Amvela, Z., 2001, “The English Language in Cameroon: The German Period”, Epasa Moto
1, (4), 194-225.
Anchimbe, E. A., 2004, “Creating New Names for Common Things in Cameroon Eng-
lish”,The Internet TESL Journal X (8) of August 2004. http://iteslj.org/Articles/Anchimbe-
CameroonEnglish.html.
Bamgbose, A., 1998, “Torn between the Norms: Innovations in World Englishes”, World
Englishes 17 (1), 1-14.
Bamiro, E. O., 1994, “Lexico-Semantic Variation in Nigerian English”, World Englishes 13
(1), 47-60.
Bokamba, E., 1992, “The Africanization of English”. In Kachru, B. B. (ed.), 77-98.
Chomsky, N., 1965, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chumbow, B. S., 1980, “Language and Language Policy in Cameroon”. In Kale, N. K.
(ed.), An African Experiment in Nation Building: The Bilingual Republic of Cameroon
since Reunification. Colorado: Westview Press, 281-311.
Duodu, K., 1986, “The Language Problem”, People’s Daily Graphic 5, Sept. 1986.
D’Souza, J., 1986, “Codification of Non-Native English: Is it Necessary/Possible?”, Studies
in the Linguistic Sciences 16, (1), 1-11.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World. http://www.ethnologue.com.
Fanso, V., 1989, Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleges: The Colonial and Post-
Colonial Periods. Vol. 2. London: Macmillan.
Gage, W. and S. Ohonnessian, 1974, 1977, “ESOL Enrolments throughout the World”,
Linguistic Reporter (1974) and later reproduced in English Teaching Forum (1977).
Graddol, D., 1997, The Future of English? The UK: The British Council.
Gyasi, I. K., 1990, “The State of English in Ghana”, English Today 6 (3), 24-26.
Hocking, B. D. W., 1974, All What I was Taught and other Mistakes: A Handbook of Com-
mon Mistakes in English. Nairobi: Oxford U.P.
Kachru, B. B., 1982, “South Asian English”. In Bailey, G. and M. Görlach (eds.), English as
a World Language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
30 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE AND STELLA A. ANCHIMBE

—, 1985, “The Pragmatics of Non-Native Englishes”. In Smith, L. E. (ed.), English for

Cross-Cultural Communication. Wiltshire: Macmillan, 15-39.
—, 1991, “Liberation Linguistics and the Quirk Concerns”, English Today 25, 7 (1), 3-13.
— (ed.), 1992, The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Urbana: U. of Illinois Press.
—, 1996, “The Paradigms of Marginality”, World Englishes 15 (3), 241-55.
Koenig, E. L., 1983, “Sociolinguistic Profile of the Urban Centres”. In Koenig et al. (eds.),
33-53.
—, et al. (eds.), 1983, A Sociolinguistic Profile of Urban Centres in Cameroon. U.S.A: Cross-
roads Press.
Leith, D., 1996, “English - Colonial to Postcolonial”. In Graddol, D. et al. (eds.), English:
History, Diversity and Change. London: Routledge.
Mazrui, A. M. and A. A. Mazrui, 1996, “A Tale of Two Englishes: The Imperial Language in
Post-colonial Kenya and Uganda”. In Fishman, J. A. et al. (eds.) Post-Imperial English:
Status Change in Former British Colonies, 1940-1990. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 271-
302.
Mbangwana, P. N., 1983, “The Scope and Role of Pidgin English in Cameroon”. In
Koenig et al. (eds.), 79-91.
—, 2002, English Patterns of Usage and Meaning. Yaounde: Presses Universitaires de Ya-
oundé.
Mbassi-Manga, F., 1976, “The State of Contemporary English in Cameroon”. In Came-
roon Studies in English and French (CASEF). Victoria: Presbook.
Menang, T., 1979, Trends in Cameroon Pidgin English Lexicology. Unpublished Master’s
Thesis, University of Yaounde.
Momo, T. N., 1997, Le Yemba: Histoire de la langue ecrite dans la Menoua. Dschang,
Cameroon: Comité d’Etude de la Langue Yémba. www.ldc.upenn.edu/sb/papers/mo-
mo.pdf.
Mufwene, S. S., 1997, “Native Speaker, Proficient Speaker, and Norm”. In Singh, R. (ed.),
Native Speaker: Multilingual Perspectives. New Delhi: Sage, 111-23.
—, 2001, The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.
Ogu, J., 1986, “Variations in the Use of English in Fiction: A Look at Four Nigerian Nov-
elists”. In S. Unoh (ed.), Use of English in Communication: The Nigerian Experience.
Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books Ltd, 79-96.
Prator, C., 1968, “The British Heresy in TESL”. In Fishman, J. A. et al (eds.), Language
Problems of Developing Nations. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 459-76.
Quirk, R., 1985, “The English Language in a Global Context”. In Quirk and Widdowson
(eds.), 1-6.
—, 1988, “The Question of Standards in the International Use of English”. In Lowenberg,
P. (ed.), Language Spread and Language Policy. Washington DC: Georgetown U.P.,
229-41.
—, 1990, “Language Varieties and Standard Language”, English Today 21, 3-10.
—, and H. G. Widdowson (eds.), 1985, English in the World. Cambridge: Cambridge
U.P.
Schneider, E., 2000, “Feature Difusion vs Contact Effect in the Evolution of the New Eng-
lishes: A Typological Case Study of Negation Patterns”, English World-Wide 21 (2),
201-30.
Schneider, G., 1974, Masa Troki Tok Sey. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University.
 SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIABLES IN THE DEGENERACY OF ENGLISH IN... 31

Singh, R. et al., 1995, “On ‘new/non-native’ Englishes: A Quartet”, Journal of Pragmatics

24 (3), 283-94.
Tchoungui, G., 1983, “Focus on Official Bilingualism in Cameroon: Its Relationship to
Education”. In Koenig et al. (eds.), 93-115.
Trudgill, P., 1998, “Standard English: What it isn’t”, The European English Messenger VII
(1), 35-39.
—, and J. Hannah, 1994, International English: A Guide to Varieties of Standard English. 2nd
ed. London: Edward Arnold.
United Nations Population Division, 2002, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision
Population Database. http://esa.un.org.unpp/p2k0data.asp.
United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Africa Population Database.
http://www.na.unep.net/globalpop/africa/app-2.php3
Whitworth, G. C., 1907, Indian English: An Examination of the Errors of Idioms made by In-
dians in Writing English. Letchworth.
Yule, G., 1996, The Study of Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.

View publication stats