Cameroonian English

Cameroonian English
RegionCameroon (largely Northwest and Southwest regions)
Early forms
Official status
Official language in
Cameroon
Language codes
ISO 639-1en
ISO 639-2eng
ISO 639-3eng
Glottologcame1256
IETFen-CM
Southern Cameroons in Cameroon

Cameroonian English (CamE), also known as Cameroon English, or sometimes Cameroon Anglophone English or Ambazonian English, is an English dialect spoken predominantly in Cameroon. It shares some similarities with English varieties in neighbouring West Africa, as Cameroon lies at the west of Central Africa; however, its distinctive phonetics, phonology and lexicon, influenced both by French and by indigenous Cameroonian languages, distinguish it as an independent variety. It is primarily spoken in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.

It is a postcolonial variety of English, long in use in the territory (Southern Cameroons, now split into Northwest and Southwest). Over the years, it has developed characteristic features, particularly in lexis but also in phonology and grammar. Those characteristics were once regarded as errors but are now increasingly accepted as distinctive Cameroonian contributions to the English language.