Franglais
 

I found this article, about language change in Cameroon, on the BBC site today. I new language is emerging which is a complete mix of French and English. Have a look at it and decide what you think.

Re: Franglais
 

Interesting.

I've found that once you are bilingual and the person you are talking with is also bilingual, you tend to mix the two languages. Sometimes Japanese has a great expression, but the same thought can't be easily explained in English and visa versa.

But is code switching the same as franglais?

Also, can you image the nightmare of having to try and codify it?

Re: Franglais
 

Yes, I agree - my son and I do it with English and Italian all the time.

However, I don't think it is the same. What we say may be mixed, but is always grammatical in terms of one or other language. We might start a sentence in one language and finish in the other, or insert a phrase from one into the other, but not mix up the grammatical structures as in "Tu as sleep hier?" I could imagine saying "Tu as dormi yesterday?" or "Did you sleep hier?" but not creating a new past form which was a mix of the two. And that seems to me to be crucial - they've invented a new grammatical form Have auxiliary + infinitive which doesn't exist in either of the two original languages. If you look at the other examples given, it's quite regular : S+avoir/etre auxiliary in French is always followed by infinitive main verb in English - tu as go / il est come etc. And presuming that these examples are representative, it always happens that way round - never for example Did you dormi yesterday? Code switching is more random, in that I might say something in one language one day, and the same thing in the other language the next.

So Frananglais is regular, with definite rules that can be codified. Which presumably qualifies it as a new language.

Re: Franglais
 

Interesting article. I agree with Mark when he says that we tend to make a mixture of 2 languages when we talk to bilingual people. I usually avoid mixing French and English when I talk to my English friends except when I don't know a technical word. I say it in French! If it doesn't work, well I try to give a thorough definition!!
As far as Franglais is concerned. I am for setting it up as an official language if it enables people to communicate more easily with each other and unite the country. any language is welcome as long as it is useful for people.
Melesians of Papua New Guinea without their own version of English would not be able to communicate with each other since between them they speak 1700 different languages.
So Franglais as a symbol of unity in Cameroon? Yes!
" Je suis sure about this ! )

Re: Franglais
 

It's very interesting. Hard to imagine it happening but there you go! I wonder will this happen with more areas and if we will have more interesting languages?

So Sue you think it's just the Have auxiliary + infinitive that has changed? Wonder how that happened in the beginning?

Re: Franglais
 

Moi too Michèle :D

No - I'm sure that a lot of other things have changed too - but there are only a few examples in the article, and that's the only clear rule to emerge from those examples. You would need an entire corpus in order to work out all the other rules. If anyone is currently in Cameroon and thinking of doing an MA or PhD in Applied Linguistics, there's a great thesis topic there!