ABSTRACT
It is possible to interpret the phrase ‘contact language’ synonymously with ‘lingua franca’, viz. as that variety that enables two or more (groups of) individuals speaking different vernaculars to communicate when they come in contact with each other. The fact that, consistent with its title, Status and use of African lingua francas, Heine (1970) includes several traditional African languages whose morphosyntax is not significantly restructured may encourage this interpretation. However, this essay is only on a subset of that long list, focusing on varieties that have been identified misguidedly as pidgins or creoles (see below). This essay is primarily on (Kikongo-)Kituba and on Lingala, both spoken in the two Congo Republics, as well as on Fanakalo (also spelled Fanagalo), spoken primarily in South Africa today but formerly also in the mining belt stretching all the way north to the Shaba province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and on Pidgin Ewondo, spoken in Cameroon (see map 12.1). These are the most commonly cited contact languages in the literature in relation to the Bantu area. The reason for this practice may be
which they have inherited most of their vocabularies). Below, I refer to them as a group with the acronym KILIFAPE.
