From a fairly marginal language that grew out of contacts between Europeans and the coastal inhabitants of Cameroon some three hundred years ago, Kamtok has developed into a fully-fledged language and is put to a wide range of uses. A survey of urban centres revealed that in the English-speaking part of the country up to 97% of school-age children already use Kamtok at the time they enter school. Kamtok is used in science and technology, in urban mass or popular culture and religion. Users bring into their Kamtok idiolects various features that derive from the official and indigenous languages that they use in different circumstances.