ABSTRACT
Multilingualism pre-dates Westernization in Central Africa. In pre-colonial days intertribal relations had already led to the development of various contact vernaculars which merely spread farther into the country with the European penetration, as they were adopted by the colonizers for economical and administrative purposes. In 1931 the colonial administration constituted this 'cite' as a new political unit called 'Centre ex- tra-coutumier', placing its inhabitants under a special legal status independent of traditional African law. Some amount of self-government was granted to them: they had special urban courts of law and even a town council under Belgian supervision. The Greeks were also quite prosperous, and their church was also the main Greek Orthodox religious centre for the whole area. British and South Africans who had been numerous before the Depression mostly moved to the Zambian Copperbelt during those difficult years, while the other foreigners stayed on.
