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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Language use in the Islamic faith in Cameroon: the case of a Mosque in the city of Maroua |
Authors: | Kouega, Jean-Paul Baimada, François G. |
Year: | 2012 |
Periodical: | Journal of languages and culture (ISSN 2141-6540) |
Volume: | 3 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 10-19 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Cameroon |
Subjects: | Islam language usage Arabic language Fulfulde language |
External link: | http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC |
Abstract: | This paper examines language use and religion, paying special attention to the languages of religious practices and the factors that determine the choice of these languages in a given polity. The data are drawn from a series of Friday congregational prayers in the main Mosque of the city of Maroua, the headquarters of the Far North region of Cameroon, an area where the Islamic faith has a high concentration of worshippers. For lack of an appropriate sociolinguistic framework of analysis, the structural-functional approach proposed by Kouega (2008a) was used. Sketchily, this approach consists in segmenting a religious service into its constituent parts and checking what language is used in what part and for what purpose. The analysis of the data collected reveals that a Friday Prayer service is divided into some 15 parts and the dominant language used is Arabic. One other language cited, exclusively for sermons and announcements are Fulfulde, a widespread northern Cameroon lingua franca. The choice of these languages is determined by a variety of factors: Arabic is the liturgical language associated with Islam, while Fulfulde is the language of the Imam, that of the Muezzin and a vehicular language in the neighbourhood. [Journal abstract] |