Linguistic and cultural pitfalls of patient-carer communication in the official health care structures of North Cameroon

Abstract

North Cameroon displays nearly sixty local languages for an estimated 3,500,000 people. Such a multilingualism is offset by the use of a major trade language, Fulfulde or Fula (spoken by Fulɓe or Fulani), which allows basic exchanges to take place in many settings. Owing to increased rates of school attendance, French has been taking on a greater but still limited role in interethnic communication. The question of language comes immediately to the fore in any medical consultation, yet there are also prior cultural factors in play which have a strong impact on the procedure.

Keywords

• Cameroon
• health
• multilingualism
• cross-cultural communication