Language choice in religious groups

What is it about?

Cameroon is a multilingual country, and as such most religious groups bring together people from different language groups. In such situations, the language used during church services ought to display this diversity. Surprisingly, the historical background of these churches, especially in the case of those church groups that resulted from Western mission societies, seems to have a very strong influence on the choice of liturgical languages. This is usually seen in the use of the languages of the ethnic groups where churches were originally founded by those mission societies. Even when this factor was not clearly visible, it usually gave potency to other factors.

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Why is it important?

Our findings reveal that ethnic fossilisation, which is the consequence of the intergenerational transmission of faith plays an important role in the structure of mainstream protestant churches in Cameroon, and perhaps in other African countries.

Perspectives