Does Cameroonian English have grammatical norms?

Abstract

This paper attempts to answer some questions that are likely to be useful in electing a norm for English at the syntactic level, such as how to distinguish between a norm and an error, where to start talking of indigenized English within a continuum, and whether the insistence on recurrence as yardstick is appropriate. I challenge the educated-usage criteria and assert that mainstream Cameroon English can only be elected in terms of the democratic and least-effort criterion. This criterion favours what I have called Community English, as against Institutional English.