Nouchi as a distinct language: The morphological evidence

Abstract: 

In this paper I argue that Nouchi, a relatively young Ivoirian contact variety, is and should be treated as a full-fledged language distinct from French and its other source languages. Nouchi, an emerging language spoken in Côte d’Ivoire since that late 1970’s (Ayewa 2005), has been treated in the literature as a slang vocabulary or an urban youth dialect of French. Though Nouchi began as a lingua franca among uneducated youth in urban centers, it is now the preferred language of Ivoirians in Abidjan and the surrounding areas of Côte d’Ivoire (Kube-Barth 2009). This paper focuses on morphological properties of Nouchi, which demonstrate that Nouchi is a full-fledged language with a grammar distinct from its source languages. 

Author: 
Publication date: 
May 30, 2015
Publication type: 
Recent Publication
Citation: 
Sande, H. (2013). Nouchi as a distinct language: The morphological evidence. In Selected proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Ruth Kramer et al., 243-253. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.