Talk:French Cameroon

Not Cameroons

The title (French Cameroons) and the introductory sentence are incorrect. There was no French Cameroons. There was Cameroun which was a French possession. No part of the former French possession of Cameroun became part of Nigeria. The complete passage gets it right, but conflicts with the title and the introductory sentence.

The title is correct. The Portuguese, English, and original French name were Cameroes/Cameroons/Camerouns, a plural of the shrimp not the region administered. When the French took over German Kamerun, they kept the singular but British usage did not. — LlywelynII 00:07, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

In fact, most current English-language academic literature refers to the former colonies that make up the current nation as "French Cameroon" -- the plural in "the British Cameroons" is related not to river crustaceans, but to the fact that there were actually two territories that made up the British sector and just one contiguous territorial space that made up the French. Referring to the "French Cameroons" with the plural looks dated and inaccurate; many scholars of the British sector are even increasingly using the singular to refer to the anglo portion. It should be changed once the whole merging issue is sorted.

--Behemothing (talk) 00:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge from Cameroun

The current article at Cameroun, while filled with numerous errors, covers the same material as this page.

Merge, then replace Cameroun namespace with a redirect to Cameroon, a modern French-speaking nation whose endonym is Cameroun.

NB: I'm assuming the formerly common English way to refer to the French colony is "French Cameroons": if that's changed to "French Cameroun" or "French Cameroon", we should merge and then move the page appropriately. — LlywelynII 00:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The competing articles about the same entity are very confusing. Has any decision been made on this front? If not, I might just take a go at merging them myself, even though I have never done that before. In keeping with the standars of other articles about colonial or currently-non-existent territorial entities, it makes sense to have an article about the colony (Cameroun française/French Cameroon) that is distinct from the article about the current nation of Cameroon, particularly since the British and French examples are very distinct. Behemothing (talk) 00:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Article merged from Cameroun See Talk:Cameroun. — Asgardiator ^{Iä! Iä!} 18:17, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 29 July 2019

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved to French Cameroon. bd2412 T 02:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

French Cameroons → ? – Proposed titles: French Cameroon or French Cameroon (colony). When France annexed the German Kamerun, they did not separated it in two colonies. French Cameroon was rarely, at most, referred as "French Cameroons" in the English language and I don't know why it is still there when there is literally no source backing it up. The Encyclopedia Britannica uses the singular form, the BBC uses "French Cameroon", the US department of State uses "French Cameroon. Those who defend "French Cameroons" has failed to provide any authoritative source that pluralize the French or back up this title hence this title is incorrect and must be renamed..

References

Onbec (talk) 22:16, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Comment. If it's to be moved, why wouldn't it be to simply French Cameroon, which already redirects here? I see no need for "(colony)". Station1 (talk) 07:00, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support/Agree with User:Station1 - The "(colony)" bit is extraneous, since there was only ever one French Cameroon and no need to disambiguate. I am not sure where the "French Cameroons" moniker came from but it was well-used during the colonial era in the English language, however, at least based on a Gnews search (which is only one indicator) "French Cameroon" is more common than [[French Cameroons" and should be adopted per WP:COMMONNAME. FOARP (talk) 11:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I can see your points User:Station1 and User:FOARP, the reason I had the (colony) was more preicsion and I thought it wouldn't work without it. If the consensus is without the (colony), I'll the first to throw it away.Onbec (talk) 17:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• "French Cameroons" is as common as "French Cameroon" in my Google Scholar search. But Camerouns français is much rarer. I'm confused by the nominator's inability to find reliable sources using the plural. Srnec (talk) 00:18, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Srnec, I do not think that a Google Scholar search engine is a good method since a lot of those "French Cameroons" results are preceded by a "British and" and if we look at articles written more recently (2015) the singular form is more popular. The nominator was referring to mainstream English-speaking institutions that have an authority on language as authoritative sources. I should have be more clear and precise. Onbec (talk) 15:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Comment Checking Google Ngrams correcting for the "British and French Cameroons", it appears that the plural was vastly more popular until the 1980s, after which usage seems to have shifted somewhat (although not as dramatically) to the singular. CThomas³ (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support just French Cameroon. The plural seems very outdated. --[E.3][chat2][me] 12:02, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

• And yet, at the time when there actually was a French Cameroon, the plural is what people used. [1] It isn't so much "outdated" as "contemporary". Srnec (talk) 01:57, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support' just French Cameroon, per most others above and these stats. Dicklyon (talk) 00:15, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.