Review of Loreto Todd, \u3cem\u3eSome Day Been Dey: West African Pidgin Folktales\u3c/em\u3e

Neither the general bibliography on African oral literature by Harold Scheub, African Oral Narratives, Proverbs, Riddles, Poetry, and Song (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1977), nor the more specific bibliography by Virginia and Mark Delancety, A Bibliography of Cameroon Folklore, an Occasional Publication of the Literature Committee of the African Studies Association (Waltham, Mass.: African Studies Association, 1972) list any collection of Pidgin narratives anywhere from Africa, let alone the Cameroon. Hence the significance of the present collection of tales. Yet its import extends beyond the sheer textual documentation of narrative in a language, the use of which, it has been generally assumed, is reserved to trade and commerce situations. Todd suggests and briefly describes the use of Pidgin in social situations in which the mother tongue is regularly spoken, In Bamenda Grass-fields and in the coastal communities Pidgin is used in church, in the market, on public transport, in intertribal gatherings, among educated and uneducated, for proverbs, for work-chants, for storytelling, and for creating an atmosphere of intimacy (p.6)