| Summary: | Nutrition has proved to be a particularly favourable field of research as a source of anthropological data and for appreciating the richness of ethnolinguistic diversity. This article aims to present some of the linguistic phenomena observed during the field research into street food in Bonanjo, an area in the center of Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon. The Enthnolinguistic material regarding the culinary aspects has been gathered in urban context where different languages and dialects are used in the social communication. This refers primarily to Cameroonian-French, Douala, Ewondo and Eton.
The first phenomenon observed is an extension of the synonymous range; in simple terms, there is a great variety of synonyms used to describe the same type of food or key ingredient. The second occurrence reported is an inclination towards the use of synesthesia, for example expressions concerning trade and business commerce. The third phenomenon is polysemy, illustrated by a small sample of linguistic expressions. A number of proverbs and idiomatic expressions in Ewondo, the context used and semantic field of reference were grammatically analyses. The final section of the article illustrates Ewondo’s terminology used in the context of taste perception and the synesthesiae which appeared in the linguistic images.
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