Tribal and trade languages

SYNOPSIS

Kituba of the southwest Belgian Congo originated as a highly simplified form of Kikongo used in inter‐tribal communication and in dealings with early European traders, explorers, etc. The spread of Kituba as a second language to speakers of many mutually unintelligible tribal languages accompanied the expansion of commerce and industry, and approximately 3 million people now speak it in Belgian and French territory. To‐day, however, many thousands of Africans speak only Kituba and no other tribal language. This development of Kituba into a fully fledged language has been marked by a rapid expansion of its vocabulary and the elaboration of its morphological and syntactical structure. In contrast with the rise of Kituba, however, is the decline of Bulu, a trade language of the French Cameroun. This decline is attributable primarily to the growing ethnic self‐consciousness of tribes for whom Bulu had previously been the medium of education, religious instruction and commerce. The emergence and growth of a trade language from a welter of tribal languages (plus, possibly, a European language) is therefore seen to depend on the inter‐play of various political, economic and socio‐psychological factors.