Rachel Ayuk Ojong Diba

Cameroon is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in Africa, yet its multilingual communities differ remarkably in how they understand and use language. This project compares two multilingual regions, Lower Fungom in the Northwest Grassfields and Bazou in the West Grassfields, to investigate how language ideologies shape multilingual practices and language vitality. In Lower Fungom, multilingualism is a valued and ordinary part of everyday life, with individuals routinely speaking several village languages to build and maintain social relationships. In Bazou, by contrast, language use is shaped by linguistic hierarchies. Smaller local languages are increasingly being replaced by Medumba, the regional lingua franca, while Medumba itself is under growing pressure from French. This layered hierarchy contributes to successive processes of language shift and the decline of smaller languages. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research conducted over more than a decade, the project examines how beliefs about language, identity, and social belonging influence language acquisition, language use, and intergenerational transmission. By comparing these contrasting multilingual ecologies, the project contributes to broader debates on multilingualism, language ideologies, language endangerment, and linguistic diversity, while offering new perspectives on how communities sustain or lose their linguistic heritage.