The article discusses the problem of language contacts and their outcomes. Deviations from recognized standards which take place in the local variants of the French language are consequent upon the transfer of the structural peculiarities of local African languages into the French language. This process affects the phonetic, grammar and lexical levels. A low competence in the French language observed in the most part of African population challenges the identification of characteristic trends and regularly recurrent errors caused by various reasons. The paper focuses the two specific phenomena which result from the language contact process – borrowings and xenisms. Source languages possess numerous differences at all levels of their systems (including the presence or absence of written language, phonetics, grammar, etc.) as compared to the French language. The research considers several types of foreign word incorporation into the borrower language system. They are phonological (graphic), morphosyntactic and semantic types. The conclusion is made about the core differences between interference and borrowings; the former is a psychological process while borrowing is a process of use of elements of another language due to the reasons of social character.