Abstract

This research work “The significance of place names in Akoose” is aimed at giving an analysis of places in Akoose in relation to their origin and significance. Names of places and plants in Akoose are very significant in that they originate due to events or circumstances that had once occurred. Just few of the things that led to the naming of places are still there while others have faded away due to development.

CHAPTER ONE

General introduction

1.1 Introduction

This chapter is a general introduction to the research. The chapter examines and gives the relevant background information. It presents the geographical location, historical information or location and the linguistic situation of the language. In addition to the above, this chapter also looks at the aims and objectives of research, the problem that motivated the study, the theoretical framework, research methodology on how data was collected and analyzed for the research, literature review on works of previous writers and the conclusion.

1.2 Historical Situation

Oral tradition holds that, the Bakossi people are descendants of Ngoe Blaz Simon (1984). He is said to have appeared on the Muanenguba Mountains where he met a lady by name Sumediang. They both migrated to Ngoe’s house at Mwekan and got married. This is where the Bakossi people are believed to have been born. Ngoe had seven sons who later migrated into different areas and formed the various clans listed below:

1. Asongoe – Southern
2. Menanmendngoe – Mwamenam.

iii.        Nnongoe – Nninong

1. Bakundangoe –Bakundu
2. Mgemengoe – Muangem (Bangem)
3. Abongoe – Bassosi, Babenoni

Source: Ngoe (1968)

The seven Akoose dialects associated with this clan include: Northern Bakossi, Western Bakossi, Southern Bakossi, Mwambong, Ninong, Elang and Mwamenam (Gordon, 2005).

Ngoe is treated as a mysterious being by oral tradition and his origin is not traceable. The language is spoken by a number of class including Bafaw, Bakundu, Bassossi, Balong, Mbo ans also Mamilo. The Bakossi people speak a Bantu language called “Akoose” which has several dialects and a common distinction is between the Upper and the Lower Bakossi. At first, the Bakossi people called themselves Bkccse meaning “they hate us”. But the name was changed as a result of the coming of the Europeans who were unable to write and pronounced the name it was called and so wrote Bakossi.

1.3 Genetic Classification

Akoose is a coastal Bantu language. Its genetic classfication comes from Niger Congo, Atlantic Congo, Volta Congo, Benue Congo, Bantoid, Southern, Narrow Bantu, North West, A, Lundu Balong (Simon and Fenning;2018). Other members include; Duala, Mboa, Oroko and Balong.

1.4 Geographical situation

Akoose is spoken in the South West Region and Mungo Division in the Littoral Region of Cameroon by the Bakossi people. It has over 100.000 speakers in Bangem, Tombel and Nguti SIL (2001). Traditionally, the Bakossi people live from hunting and subsistence farming- cocoa and coffee as well as cocoyam and plantain are now imported employed in various fields like; medicine, administration (Hedinger, 2004).

From an arial view, Bangem lies in the Cavity of a slapping fertile Plateau towards East West, irrigated by two streams: The Mkwene on the south and the Mbuwe on the North (Ewane, 2010). It is situated between latitudes 5015’ and 4036’ North of the Equator and between longitudes 9028’ and 9051’ East of Greenwich, West of Mount Kupe and Muanenguba, Far North of Mount Cameroon and the Rumpi hills. The area occupied here is about 2.083 square kilometers. The two mountains, Kupe (south) and Muanenguba (North) are linked by a lower plateau terrain of about 1000m above sea level that slopes fairly steeply West and East like the mountains themselves.

According to Hedinger (1977), Akoose is a “narrow” Bantu language spoken in the North Western Most corner of the Bantu area and is classified as Bantu. The Bakossi people live in the Western and Eastern slopes of the Kupe Mwanenguba Mountain. They occupy both the highlands and lowlands which has fertile soils, watered by streams that rise in the mountains and is covered by dense forest which contains a wide variety of trees, birds and animals. S.N Ejedepang (1986) says that, the Bakossi people live in the western and Eastern slopes of the Kupe Mwanenguba Mountains which falls within the French speaking part of Cameroon. Gordon (2005:56) says that Akoose is a North West Bantu language belonging to the Mwanenguba cluster which is part of the lunda Balong group (A10), Ngoe sub-group. The Bakossi people love fishing, hunting of all kinds of animals found in the forest, as well as farming of various cash crops like: cocoa, coffee, and food crops like; cocoyam’s, plantains, banana, cassava. But with the coming of civilization and the building of many infrastructures, some have been employed in various fields like; medicine, teaching and the rest.

1.5 Sociolinguistic situation

The languages spoken in the Akoose community include; Akoose, English, Pidgin, and French. Akoose dominates all the languages of choice in the community, this means that, Akoose is mostly used as compared to the other languages in the Akoose clan. It is not used as a medium of instruction, and is not taught as a subject, but rather used as a medium of communication in traditional events such as songs, prayers and sermons and in schools between teachers and students are also medium of communication as well as Pidgin. There are dialectal variations between Northern, Southern and Western Bakossi.

Apart from Akoose being the true language of the Bakossi people, they equally have other languages they use as medium of communication amongst themselves and with strangers who visits their clan on daily basis. Example of other languages they use for communication include; Pidgin English, French, and English itself. Some examples of Akoose varieties include; under their traditional meals we have dishes like; pounded cocoyam and Esuba, kwangkwalang and nzabege.

1.6 Aim of the study

The research is aimed at bringing to how place names are important and what the place signifies in the mind of the Akoose people.

1.7 Objectives of the study

The significance of place names in Akoose, is to;

1. Collect place names
2. Analyse the names to bring out their sociolinguistics significance

1.8 Scope of Work

The treatment of the significance of place names as a whole is vast. The study identifies and classifies place names under categories. From this, we shall group place names based on their historical origins or background, we give their meanings and lastly their locations.

1.9 Theoretical framework

A theory is a set of rules which have been verified tested and proven and can be used as principles of explanation. The approached used in this research is the Sociolinguistic approach (Sapir Whorf hypothesis) which states that “the society in which we live shapes our thoughts.  The work seeks to examine how significant or important place names are considered in Akoose, and how these places were formed, and those who formed the places from the beginning and how they found themselves in that place, under this, we shall classify the names of places and plants based on their significance.

1.10 Research Methodology

Data was collected from primary and secondary sources i collect data from the field with the help of informants for the primary source; I collected raw data from the field of my research through my informant who happens to be my late father. The information I got from the primary sources was about place names. I asked about onomastics which is the main body of my work, which talks about the study of proper names especially the names of people and places, and what the various names signifies in Akoose. For the secondary source of data, books, articles, were read and other documents were read for further information concerning the study. I used the bilingual approach for my data since I am not fluent in the language. Interview was the instrument I used for my data to be properly transcribed; it was recorded, and I read the words before transcribing.

1.11 Literature review

Akoose is not a new language to linguistics research. It is a language that has been widely studied by both scholars and missionaries who did research in narrow Bantu languages. Some of the previous works done on the language are reviewed below.

Ejedepang koge (1986), “The tradition of a people Bakossi”, worked on grammar and conjugation patterns in Akoose (Wikipedia).

Jonas N. Dah (1996), in “the Gospel in Bakossi (1896-1996)” studied the religion of the people. He observed that Bakossi people operate a system in which they believed mostly in their ancestors. He said due to the spread of Christianity, the people now believe in God. Religion can be seen as a very significant aspect of Akoose people as a result of her work she made us to understand the fact that some inhuman activities and idol worship was wipe out as Christianity was introduced.

Apuge (1998), provides a clear descriptional of the noun morphology in Akoose and the typology of Akoose sentences, gotten online in 2003, he also worked on the ‘Deep Structure in Akoose discussing the various syntactic postions of the determiner.

Ekan Jume (2005), worked on “Information packaging in Akoose”. Which states that, information packaging should not only be considered at the level of word order but also at the level of tones and intonation? Her aim was to see how information is packaged in Akoose and how it can contribute to the understanding of the workings of natural languages.

Hedinger (2008), worked on “The grammar of Akoose which he concluded that Akoose is a North West Bantu language. In 1982, he treated the reported speech in Akoose.

Elunge (2011), in “The structure of Idiomatic Expressions in Akoose Noun Phrase and Sentences”, gives a description of how idiomatic expression occurs in noun and sentences in the language.

Bawe (2011), worked on the sociolinguistics of Akoose with emphasis on personal names. She gave a typical analysis of personal names in Akoose in relation to their origin and significance. The information presented in her work is beneficial in that, it gives us a notion of how names originate in the language. The same pattern may be observed for significance of place names in Akoose

Hedinger (2012), in Akoose English dictionary listed the names of places and plants paying attention to how the names are spelt. The meaning and significance of these names were not explained, thus the need for further research in this area.

1.12 Significance of the Study

This research will serve as a contribution towards the significance of place names in the Akoose community by making the Bakossi clan know how certain places originated, and those who discovered them and gave their names, and how we are to classify the place names into various categories, beginning with their origin, meaning and lastly their location.

This research will serve as a guide for future research and will also help the community to know more about the Bakossi people and what made them to give or name places according to how they call them. The research will also help in studying proper names in Akoose, that is, names of places, and people in Akoose.

This work is important because it will help Bakossi people who had never gone to the village to know the importance, origin, meaning and location of some certain villages they might want to explore someday. This work is also important in the sense that it will widen the brain of the Bakossi people to know more about their langauge ‘Akoose’, and will also help other researchers and those writing in ‘Akoose’ with other new ideas about the language they had never come across.

1.13 Organization of work

The research is made up of four chapters. Chapter one is a general introduction of the work. It gives the historical and linguistic situation, aims and objectives, research methodology, theoretical framework, literature review and conclusion.

Chapter two presents an overview of the sound system of Akoose. They include; consonants, vowels, tones, and some phonological processes.