BEYOND BORROWING: ENGLISH WORDS’ BORROWING IN THE BULU LANGUAGE IN CAMEROON – A SEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY PERSPECTIVE
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Abstract
This study is a descriptive qualitative study that attempts to explore the relationship between English and Bulu in Cameroon phonologically. The aim is to investigate to what extent Bulu borrows English words; to examine the phonological processes involved as well as the reason why they occur, and to see whether English word borrowing is liable to destabilize Bulu. Therefore, with the approval of the group administrators, the members of a Facebook group Bia so Ebolowa (BISE) – the members are all Bulu native speakers – were asked to provide random English words from Bulu. Twenty (20) words were randomly selected; their spellings were verified in a Bulu-French dictionary, and then inserted in a table with their English counterparts (plus phonological transcriptions); they were observed thoroughly and analyzed phonologically. It was found out that nouns were mainly borrowed; in addition to this, Bulu accommodates English words to suit its alphabet, which results to vowel assimilation and consonant deletion which consequently lead to their mispronunciations in the Bulu language. Therefore, there is an accommodation of English words to Bulu alphabet and tone through phonological adjustments of English nouns, which is not enough to say that English is a linguistic destabilizer to the Bulu language.
