ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews research on the language practices of youth in four different sociocultural contexts: Tsotsitaals in South Africa, Sheng in Kenya, Nouchi in the Ivory Coast, and Camfranglais in Cameroon. It shows that these ways of speaking developed in urban areas most likely among certain marginalized groups of male youths. The chapter demonstrates that these practices are performance-based styles that function to create and maintain social divisions among male social networks. It also shows that co-option into public spaces and commodification have transformed features of these practices into iconic symbolic resources that speakers draw on in combination with local varieties and other symbolic resources to express a cosmopolitan African identity. Cote d'Ivoire, in West Africa, is a former French colony where France still has significant influence. The studies done in South Africa, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Cameroon show that the language practices of youth in these four countries are strikingly similar.
