(In)Visible Traces of Multilingualism in Cameroon’s Fulani “Mbooku” Oral Poetry

The “Mbooku” is an oral genre of poetry sung by the Fulani from Northern Cameroon, mostly during the 19th and 20th centuries and no longer practiced. Only poor-quality audios, videos, and few transcriptions, translations, and publications preserve this poetry in reminiscences of the past glories of this unique a capella popular literature in the Cameroon literary polysystem. The aim of this paper is to explore traces of multilingualism, especially French, English, Arabic, and other African and Cameroonian languages spoken in Cameroon (Hausa, Kanuri, Musgum, Massa and Chuwa Arabic) through the lens of cultural and postcolonial approaches. In these poems multilingualism reflects not only colonialism but also how (un)conscious use of “foreign” language helps build a nationwide literature through world languages and cultures inherited from colonization and through indigenous African languages.