Korup is an ethnic group of forest people located in Southwest Province of

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

and in the adjacent

Cross River State Cross River State is a state in the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Named for the Cross River, the state was formed from the eastern part of the Eastern Region on 27 May 1967. The state has its capital as Calabar and is bordered to ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. There are currently four Korup villages in the Cameroonian side: Erat (a.k.a. Ekon II), Ekon I, Ikondokondo (also spelled Ekundukundu) and Akpassang (a.k.a. Ikondokondo II). The largest village of all is Erat, with an approximate population of ~450,Röschenthaler, U. (2000). Culture, history and perceptions on resettlement: a baseline study of the six villages in the Korup National Park. Korup Project Study, Mundemba, pp. 108. and it is located inside the Korup National Park - which has received its name from the Korup people inhabiting its forests. Ikondokondo used to be located inside the park, but in 2000 it was relocated in the park's support zone, north of the town of Mundemba. This is why Ikondokondo is nowadays also known as "the Resettlement". Akpassang and Ekon I are very close to, but outside, the park boundaries. Nigerian Korup villages, such as Ekonanaku, are large but not solely inhabited by Korup people. All the young people speak the language and they do identify themselves as of the Korup tribe. The relationship of Korup villages with the other ethnic groups in the region (i.e. Oroko, Ejagham) is nowadays amiable, and there are often intercultural marriages, especially with the much larger Oroko ethnic group. In the past however, there were frequent clashes between villages of different ethnic groups over ownership of forests.

Language

The Korup language is a distinct local dialect that is not related to the neighbouring tribes. Cameroonian

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

is used as a local "

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

" between people of different ethnic groups in the region, as is the case for most of

Anglophone The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...

Cameroon. (Note: Cameroonian Pidgin, though very similar to

Nigerian Pidgin Nigerian Pidgin, also known simply as Pidgin or as Naijá in scholarship, is an English-based creole language spoken as a ''lingua franca'' across Nigeria. The language is sometimes referred to as ''Pijin'' or ''Vernacular''. Coming into existe ...

, it is not exactly the same, although speakers of each are largely mutually understood). Falling Waters in KORUP National park

References

{{authority control Ethnic groups in Cameroon Ethnic groups in Nigeria