this study examines some lexical residues of british colonialism in a language spoken in the western province of cameroon, west africa. the language is w$\tilde{e}$, a dialect within the indigenous language gh[open o]màlà, which is spoken in four villages in the western province of cameroon: bahouan, baham, bayangam and bandjoun. the paper also seeks to answer the question: why are there so many english lexical items in this dialect, changed almost beyond recognition, reminiscent of the presence of the british themselves in cameroon, although this part of the country was formerly under french rule.