Cameroon

The survey investigated five speech varieties on the Nigeria-Cameroon border located in the Far North Province (Cameroon) and Borno and Adamawa States (Nigeria): Cineni, Glavda, Guduf, Gvoko, and Vemgo-Mabas. This report includes only Glavda [glw], Cineni [cie], and Vemgo-Mabas [vem]. It was a rapid appraisal with interviews based on a prepared questionnaire and lexico-statistical analysis of a word list. The basis for interpreting the attitudes, vitality, and mutual intelligibility of the languages was Watters' (1990) criteria. According to Watters, there are three factors that affect the nature and development of language programs: the homogeneity of the linguistic community, their openness to change and development, and the presence of a middle-aged leadership at the local level.

This survey was carried out in 1999 in areas of Nigeria and Cameroon which have been affected by the Boko Haram Muslim religious movement. It was carried out before participatory methods for data collection and the Extended Generational Interference Distance Scale (EGIDS) (Lewis and Simons 2015) were developed for describing language vitality and sustainability. This survey provides the data for longitudinal studies of language maintenance and shift. It provides data to compare Watters' (1990) analysis to that of EGIDS. Updated information about the villages studied in the survey could provide data to verify the above-mentioned theories about language maintenance and shift, language vitality and sustainability.

(This survey report written some time ago deserves to be made available even at this late date and without the usual anonymous peer-review. Conditions were such that it was not published when originally written. The reader is cautioned that more recent research may be available elsewhere. Historical data are quite valuable as they provide a basis for a longitudinal analysis and help us understand both the trajectory and pace of change as compared with more recent studies.—Editor)