On May 09, 2020 the Prime Minister of Cameroon, Chief Dr.

It is worth stating that it has also witnessed some form of sanctification especially with its use by high-ranking government officials. Pidgin has evolved in leaps and bounds, rotating from the fringes to the centre, of even national political life. In fact, it was contradictorily and vigorously combatted in academic circles as university campuses hosted anti-Pidgin sign posts while these same universities awarded degrees to students for thesis hinged on Pidgin. Prior, it was a marginal construct, visible on the fringes of society, far away from the circles of power and decision. Despite its current national omnipresence, it has only recently slipped into mainstream discourse with growing use in entertainment and advertising. The lingua franca has survived two colonial eras, sprawling, since Cameroon’s independence beyond its early home in English speaking regions, into even French speaking regions. Authors like Jean-Paul Kouega (2001) have traced the birth of Pidgin English in Cameroon back to the Slave Trade Years (1400-1800).

It has different origin stories in the various countries where it exists. Pidgin is a language spoken in several West and Central African countries like Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Cameroon, with diverse variants co-existing rather harmoniously. It is nevertheless necessary to premise any exploration of the challenges on some contextualisation albeit summary of Pidgin. This core fact should however not make industry stakeholders lose sight of other challenges, given that they all deserve attention. However, the road to meeting this need is strewn with several challenges, one of which is the absence of a generally agreed-upon writing code: there is yet be a consensus on how Pidgin English should be written. This is evidenced by the number of translation agencies putting out calls for pidgin translators. There is a growing need for Pidgin translation.

Pidgin translator