Paremias as a vector of linguistic and cultural transfer in cameroonian literature in spanish language: a case study of Diario de Hoo and El hijo varón by Germain Metanmo and Me llamo Kanebe by Céline Manéché Ndé Sika

Abstract

Spanish as a foreign language in Africa has been gaining ground and importance over the years. Evidence of this is the number of writers and literary productions known on the continent. The vast majority of these authors are French-speaking and have inherited the Spanish language primarily through the French colonial education system implemented in their former colonies. Cameroon, a country in the continental center, saw its first short story published in 1953 by Germain Metanmo, one of the two authors in our corpus, along with Céline Manéché Ndé. Both authors represent important figures in the emerging Cameroonian literature in Spanish. This article draws inspiration from their novels to demonstrate that the paremias abundant in their texts are vectors of linguistic and cultural transfer. Indeed, through phraseology, these authors transfer ideas from their native culture to the Spanish language, thereby contributing to the enrichment of Hispanic culture in general.