refugees constitute almost one-third of the overall population. It is worth noting that, small as this country is, it hosts approximately 400,000 to 500,000 refugees from Senegal (particularly the Casamance region), Guinea and Sierra Leone i.e. With the exception of Dalphinis’ detailed study (1986) of Aku, the variety of Krio spoken in The Gambia, and some initial findings by Simo Bobda, Wolf, and Peter (1999) on the standard variety of English, practically no literature exists on English in The Gambia. The official language of The Gambia is English. In 1981 the two countries formed a short lived confederation, which was terminated in 1989, mainly for political and linguistic reasons. All ethnic groups and languages that exist in The Gambia can also be found in Senegal (cf. 5 1991: 103).Įxcept for her 80 km long Atlantic coast line, The Gambia is completely surrounded by her francophone neighbor Senegal, with which it shares close linguistic and cultural ties. 4 1978: 334 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. In 1965 The Gambia gained independence and became part of the Commonwealth ( Der Grosse Brockhaus vol. The Gambia was declared a protectorate in 1894 in 1902 the British occupied the hinterland. At first, The Gambia was jointly administered with Sierra Leone (Dalphinis 1986: 215), until it became a British colony in 1843 (after 1888 with its own governor), and in 1857 the French made Albreda over to Great Britain. In 1816 the British founded Bathurst, today Banjul, as a naval base and settlement for freed African slaves. Struggles with the French, who had established Albreda as an enclave in that area in 1681, persisted until the Treaty of Versailles in 1883, which settled British claims to the Gambia River. Contacts with English traders at the mouth of the river Gambia go back to 1588, the year the English acquired The Gambia from the Portuguese (Hansen, Carls, and Lucko 1996: 177). It has a population of about 1,300,000 (July 1998 est. The Gambia is the smallest of the anglophone states in West Africa and the smallest African state per se. Contributions to the Sociology of Language 85. Institute of English and American StudiesĮxtract from: Wolf, Hans-Georg (2001). A Research Project at the Department of Linguistics

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