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2

Article agglutination and the African contribution

to the Portuguese-based Creoles

John Ladhams

1. Introduction: article agglutination1 Article agglutination is an etymological feature of various creole languages whereby an element which occurs very frequently immediately before a particular noun in the lexical source language – most often a definite or partitive article – is incorporated into, or agglutinated to, the noun, and this combination is re-analysed as a single morpheme (a noun) in the emergent creole. For example: French le rat ‘the rat’, les rats ‘the rats’ > Mauritian Creole lera, ‘rat(s)’ (en lera ’a rat’, kat lera ‘four rats’); French du thé ‘(of) tea’ > Mauritian Creole dite ‘(brand/measure of) tea’ (dite-la ‘the tea’, en dite ‘one (brand, cup, etc. of) tea’, trwa dite ‘three teas’) etc. Although article agglutination occurs in at least 11 non-French creoles (Parkvall 2000: 81), it is a notable feature of all French lexicon creoles except Réunionnais, and is particularly common in Mauritian Creole and its derivatives.. The first major study of this phenomenon, Baker (1984), concentrated on the Indian Ocean Creoles and, for comparison, Haitian French Creole, and he noted well over 400 examples from Mauritius and the Seychelles, more than 300 from Rodrigues, just 12 from Réunion, and over 100 from Haiti. The explicit aim of his paper was to try to explain the very unequal distribution of the feature amongst the French-based Creoles (1984: 89), which he ultimately attributed to the influence of Bantu languages in the formation of these creoles, in that the definite and partitive articles in French were perceived to be noun-class markers by speakers of Bantu languages, and were thus agglutinated into the noun. The exceptions were clearly Réunion, and to some extent Haiti, but this could be explained by the fact that in Réunion, very few Bantu-speaking slaves were imported, at least initially, while in Haiti, the Bantu influence was attenuated by speakers of other African languages. More than a decade later, Grant (1995) published a study of article agglutination in the French-based Creoles, largely based on Baker’s data at that time (including additional material collected for Baker 1988). But Grant also added data from pidgins with a lexical input from French: Bislama in the Pacific, Sango in Africa, and Chinook Jargon and Michif in North America.2 Including examples from the latter languages, he was able to report that his database of article agglutination in the French-based Creoles numbered “some 2500 separate agglutinated nominals” (1995: 155). By and large, Grant accepted Baker’s

1 I am very grateful to Philippe Maurer for sharing his data on Príncipe Creole (since published in Maurer

2009), without which this article would be much the poorer. My thanks also go the the editors of this volume for their helpful comments. Any remaining errors or shortcomings are solely my responsibility.

2 He could also have added Turku Creole Arabic, spoken in Chad, where Muraz (1931) gives a dozen or so lexical items with agglutinated articles derived from French.

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suggestion of the influence of Bantu languages, but failed to explain why such languages as Tayo or the North American Pidgins, where there was almost certainly no African influence, let alone Bantu, should have article agglutination at all.3

A few years later, Parkvall (2002: 81-83) addressed the question of why there were so many more examples of article agglutination in French-based Creoles than in other pidgins and creoles, for example English-based ones: “This might be explained by the tendency of English, Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish nouns to occur without a definite article more often than their counterparts in French, due to the frequent marking of partitive articles in French. In addition to this, French word-stress being considerably weaker (…), this may have made it more difficult to adequately perceive the boundary between noun and article” (2002: 81). Like Grant, Parkvall agreed with Baker about Bantu influence in the Indian Ocean Creoles, but he pointed out “that does not hold for the Atlantic languages” (2002: 82).

McWhorter & Parkvall (2002: 193-94) also address the question of article agglutination in the French-based Creoles, in an article which amounts to a strong critique of Chaudenson’s ‘superstratist’ approach to creolisation. They do not refer to the possible influence of Bantu languages in this feature, but do come to the “inevitable conclusion” that these and other features are the result of “interrupted transmission” (2003: 194).

In response to all four of the above-mentioned studies of article agglutination in French-based Creoles, Chaudenson (2003: 262-69) launches a fierce attack on the whole idea of Bantu influence, particularly as outlined by Baker (1984), but also includes Grant (1995), since “practically three-quarters of the cases [of article agglutination] derive from [Baker’s works]” (Chaudenson 2003: 266). Chaudenson sums up his case by saying that “L’hypothèse du substrat bantou, si évidente pour P Baker il y a quelques années encore, est totalement indéfendable en raison du mode de selection des données, à la lumière de la comparaison avec le rodriguais et du fait de l’étude de la bantouisation des emprunts au français. Il y a là plusieurs arguments dont chacun est suffisant à soi seul” (2003: 269).4 This is not the place to discuss his arguments in detail, but suffice it to say that this writer, at least, finds them unconvincing.5 Indeed, he himself could be accused of selecting some data and ignoring others, particularly in relation to the work of Grant and Parkvall. Furthermore, Chaudenson seizes upon the fact that McWhorter & Parkvall (2002) do not refer to Bantu influence: “on se contente de parler désormais de ‘transmission interrompue’ (2002: 194); je préférerai personnellement ‘appropriation approximative’ (…)” (Chaudenson 2003: 269). However, this is not necessarily the same thing.

Chaudenson aside, this brief overview of article agglutination in the French-based Creoles does appear to show a link between the frequency of this feature in a particular Creole and African, probably Bantu, influence. The remainder of this article now turns to article agglutination in the Portuguese-based Creoles, and once again the possible link with African influence. 3 However, see Speedy (2007) for an account of possible influence from Réunionnais on Tayo Creole. 4 It is not clear whether Chaudenson’s “plusieurs” is referring to two or three arguments. I am assuming

that there are three. 5 For example, of Grant’s computerised data base, Chaudenson states: “À l’ère de la Play Station 3 et des

ordinateurs intégrés au téléphone mobile, l’informatique n’impressionne plus autant qu’autrefois. Si l’on met des données douteuses dans un ordinateur, elles n’en sont pas validées pour autant.” (One nevertheless assumes that he would not have wanted Grant to return to the use of handwritten index cards!)

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2. Article agglutination in Portuguese-based Creoles Though not nearly as widespread as in the French-based Creoles, article agglutination is a feature of a number of Portuguese-based Creoles, albeit confined to one particular group, those in the Gulf of Guinea. Elsewhere, the feature is marginal: for Capeverdean Creole, Lopes da Silva (1957:129) gives the following 7 examples, 5 with common nouns, and 2 with toponyms: azágua < as águas ‘rainy season’ azilya < as ilhas ‘Cape Verde Islands’ pazdreita < para as direitas ‘to the right (-hand side)’ spiʃine < os peixinhos ‘Hell’ [lit. ‘the little fishes’] stoʃa < as tochas ‘Hell’ [lit. ‘the torches’] skorde < os cardos (toponym) [lit. ‘the thistles’] spedra < as pedras (toponym) [lit. ‘the stones’]

[Note that all seven examples are derived from the plural definite article in Portuguese.]

There are no documented occurrences of article agglutination in the related Guinea-Bissau Creole. In all the Asian Portuguese-based Creoles,6 one word might seem to be an instance of article agglutination: anote, ‘night’, but it is in fact derived from Portuguese à noite, ‘at night’, i.e. a preposition. However, it is in the four Gulf of Guinea Creoles – São Tomé (ST), Príncipe (Pr), Annobon (Ann) Creoles, and the Maroon Creole, Angolar (Ang), on São Tomé Island – that a relatively high number of examples of article agglutination occurs (120), as shown in Appendix 1. The following points may be made about this list:

• The number of examples of agglutinated articles in Pr is considerably greater than in the other three (88, as opposed to 15 in ST, 14 in Ann and only 3 in Ang). Why that should be the case will be discussed in Section 3 below.

• While most of the examples are derived from the singular definite article in Portuguese – o [u], masculine, and a [ɐ], feminine -, there are two examples of words derived from the feminine plural definite article (as): zálima and zonda, in both ST and Pr (cf the examples from Capeverdean Creole cited above).

• There are also two examples of words derived from the Portuguese indefinite article (um, uma): umpan and umuña, both in Pr; there is no partitive article in Portuguese, unlike in French.

• There are 9 examples of derivation from Portuguese definite articles of the ‘wrong’ gender, all but one in Pr, replacing the feminine article a with the initial vowel u, as indicated in Appendix 1 by an asterisk. Indeed, the vast majority of the examples in Pr have initial u, and only 4 with initial a.

• Again in Pr, there are 6 examples of words derived from noun phrases in Portuguese taking on different grammatical categories: verb, adjective, preposition (udêntu, udôdô, ugagu, ukuru, ukurú, unú).

• As for the semantic domains for all these Gulf of Guinea examples, they are mostly such basic vocabulary as parts of the body, or domestic items such as tools, food, plants, animals, etc. Also, they largely observe what Baker (1984: 111) calls the

6 Norteiro, Korlai and Sri Lanka varieties of Indo-Portuguese, Papia Kristang (Malacca), Tugu Creole (Java),

and Macau Creole. See, respectively, Dalgado (1906), Clements (1995), Dalgado (1900), Baxter & De Silva (2004), Schuchardt (1890), and Batalha (1988).

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‘frequency of collocation’ principle, whereby article agglutination takes place generally when there is only one of the particular noun (sun, moon, nose, mouth, etc.).

• In Pr, there is one example of agglutination in a strictly 20th-century word: ukaru < o carro, ‘car’. This shows that article agglutination, in Pr at least, is an ongoing, gradual process.

3. The African contribution to the Gulf of Guinea Creoles. Having shown that article agglutination in the Portuguese-based Creoles is largely confined to the four Gulf of Guinea Creoles, and the examples in Pr greatly outnumber those in the other three, it remains to establish why this is the case, and, particularly, to what extent it is the result of African (“substrate”) influence. For this it is necessary to give a detailed account of the patterns of early settlement in the islands, with emphasis on the precise origins and timing of slave imports from the African mainland. São Tomé was the first of the three islands to be discovered, probably in 1471. In 1485, the first settlement grant was issued, closely followed by a Royal Letter of Privilege for the settlers, granting all the right to have slaves. By around 1507, Valentim Fernandes’ description of São Tomé states that there were some 2,000 slaves on the island, compared with 1,000 European settlers (1940: 122).

Príncipe was probably discovered around 1472, but it is known that settlement of the island only began in 1500, under the Captain, António Carneiro, appointed in the same year. The Royal Letter of Privilege, also issued in 1500, is similar to that drawn up for São Tomé in 1485. The earliest population figures for Príncipe date only from 1607, when there were 10 Europeans and 500 slaves, as well as 18 “married creoles” and 20 “married free blacks”.

Annobon, a much smaller and more remote island than the other two, was discovered possibly around 1500. According to Valentim Fernandes, settlement began in 1503, and by 1507 there were just 9 white inhabitants (1940: 129-30). Because of the island’s size and difficult access, there was probably only one shipment of slaves around the time of the initial settlement, almost certainly distributed from the main island of São Tomé. However, there is no clear documentary evidence of this.

The Angolar maroon community, on the island of São Tomé, according to oral tradition, is understood to consist partly of the descendants of survivors from the shipwreck of a slave ship from Angola on the southern coast of the island, around the middle of the 16th century, and partly of runaway slaves from the plantations on the northern part of the island. Certainly throughout the 16th century there are many reports of slaves escaping into the dense forest in the interior of the island.7 The pattern of slave trading by the Portuguese for the Gulf of Guinea Islands is reasonably well documented, and it is clear that the areas of supply for the island of São Tomé, from where slaves were redistributed to the other two islands of Príncipe and Annobon8, were in fact only two in number: the Niger Delta, and the coastal region Southwards from the estuary of the Congo River. The actual trading places were as follows:

7 For a more detailed account of the settlement of the 3 islands and the formation of the Angolar community,

see Ladhams (2003). 8 There was one notable exception, in the early 16th century, as described below.

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Ughoton The so-called Slave Rivers, on the Western side of the Niger Delta, were known to the Portuguese from the 1470s. According to Duarte Pacheco Pereira (Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, Book 2, Chapter 8; Pereira 1988: 148-53), they consisted of the ‘Rio Primeiro’, ‘Rio Fermoso’ (nowadays the Benin River), ‘Rio dos Escravos’, Rio dos Forcados’ and ‘Rio dos Ramos’. On the second of these rivers was the port of Ughoton, which gave access to the ‘Kingdom’ of Benin:

E indo pelo segundo braço acima, espaço de doze léguas, é achada ũa vila que se chama Hugató, que será lugar de dous mil vizinhos: e este é o porto da grande cidade do Beni que está no sertão nove léguas de bom caminho. (...) O reino do Beni será de oitenta léguas de comprido e quarenta de largo. E o mais do tempo faz guerra aos vizinhos, onde toma muitos cativos que nós compramos a doze e quinze manilhas de latão ou de cobre, que eles mais estimam. (Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, Book II, Chapter 7; Pereira 1988:149). [And going up the second branch of the river, for a distance of twelve leagues, there is a town called Ughoton, which would have around two thousand inhabitants: and this is the port of the great city of Benin which is nine leagues inland by a good road. (...) The kingdom of Benin must be eighty leagues long and forty wide. And most of the time they make war on their neighbours, where they take many captives which we buy at the rate of twelve and fifteen manilhas of brass or copper, which they appreciate most.]

Pereira adds that these slaves were then (early 16th century) transported to El Mina, where they were traded for gold. It is known that the Portuguese set up a trading factory (feitoria) at Ughoton in 1487, which survived, somewhat precariously it seems, for around twenty years (see Ryder 1969: 32-33). Meanwhile, the first settlement grant for the island of São Tomé, in 1485, had given the colonisers the right to acquire slaves in the five “Slave Rivers”. However, subsequent grants for São Tomé in 1493, and for both São Tomé and Príncipe in 1500, no longer referred to the Slave Rivers as being within the permitted trading area. Following the closure of the factory at Ughoton, in 1506 or 1507, the trading rights with Benin were leased out by the Portuguese Crown, and in 1514 a four-year exclusive lease was granted to António Carneiro, the donatário (lord) of Príncipe, which meant that between 1514 and 1518, slaves were being imported from Benin directly to the island of Príncipe (Ryder 1969 :44). This was clearly to have linguistic consequences in terms of the proportion of African influence on Príncipe Creole, as indicated below. However, in 1516 the Oba - or ruler - of Benin laid down that male and female slaves were to be traded separately, and within a few years, only female slaves could be sold to the Portuguese, or to any other traders (Ryder 1969: 45). The surviving ships’ books, from the 1520s, show how trade continued at Ughoton, but on a smaller scale than before, and for female slaves only.9 Therefore, the Portuguese were at this time seeking alternative markets, which they found elsewhere in the Niger Delta, as well as in the Congo region. By the middle of the century, trading by the Portuguese at Ughoton had ceased, as formalised by an official ban issued from São Tomé in 1553 (Ryder 1969: 74). Forcados River In the fourth of the five Slave Rivers, slave trading was carried out by the Portuguese at least from the beginning of the 16th century, at a point five leagues from the river mouth, according to Duarte Pacheco Pereira (1988: 152). Following the limits placed on trade at Ughoton after 1516, trade at the Forcados River would appear to have increased, as

9 See for example, the ship’s book for the ‘São Miguel’ (1522), translated into English in Ryder (1969: 295-

306).

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attested for example by the ship’s book for the 1522 voyage of the “Santa Maria da Conceição” to the Forcados River, and to Ughoton, where the slaves acquired were all female (Ryder 1969). It is unclear, however, how long trading continued at the Forcados River: it is unlikely to have gone on beyond the 1553 ban on trading with Benin. Rio Real This river, nowadays called the River Bonny, at the Eastern end of the Niger Delta, is mentioned by Duarte Pacheco Pereira as being a location for slave trading in the first decade of the 16th century (1988: 156). In the settlement grants for São Tomé in 1493 and 1500, and for Príncipe in 1500, mention is made of the Rio Real, as being within the limits of the area (as far as the Congo) where trading was permitted. Once again, just how long trading here continued is uncertain. Mpinda This port on the South side of the mouth of the Congo River was first reached by the Portuguese with Diogo Cão, probably in 1483 (see e.g. Birmingham 1966: 21-26). Trade with the Kongo Kingdom rapidly took off, particularly for the supply of slaves to the Gulf of Guinea Islands. In the 1493 and 1500 settlement grants for São Tomé and Príncipe, it was made quite clear that residents could freely trade in slaves at the Congo River (Mpinda). This was reiterated in a Grant from King Manuel in 1504, which limited trading to the Congo River, and banned commerce further South along the coast (Birmingham 1966:29). That Mpinda was by far the major source of slaves for the Gulf of Guinea Islands throughout the century can be seen for example in the 1548 Enquiry into the São Tomé trade, which stated amongst other things that 4,000 to 5,000 slaves were exported from Mpinda every year in the 1530s (Brásio 1953: 197); however, by no means all of these were retained for use on the Islands. According to Birmingham (1966: 78), trade at Mpinda went into decline at the beginning of the 17th century, in favour of Luanda, further South. Kwanza River; Luanda Despite the 1504 ban on trading South of Mpinda, it is clear that for most of the century slaves were acquired along the coast, particularly at the mouth of the Kwanza River, South of Luanda, as indicated by Birmingham (1966: 32-33), quoting documents from 1532, 1548 and 1551. However, by 1575, when the Portuguese under Paulo Dias de Novais were attempting to take over the site of Luanda as their first colonial settlement in Africa, there was already a great deal of slave trading there, as much as 10,000 slaves a year, according to one Jesuit priest quoted by Birmingham, and trade increased considerably at Luanda up to the end of the century (1966: 41, 50). Having shown where and when the slaves for the Gulf of Guinea islands were obtained, a pattern for the import and distribution of those slaves can be established. From the final decades of the 15th century until the ban in 1553, the Portuguese were obtaining slaves at Ughoton and the Forcados River for transportation to São Tomé, and thence a partial redistribution to Príncipe and on a very small scale to Annobon. However, for a four-year period only (1514-1518), slaves were also being imported from this region directly to Príncipe. Meanwhile, trading at Mpinda had begun before 1500, and as indicated above, slaves were imported to São Tomé in large numbers up to the end of the 15th century, and, no doubt, redistributed to some extent to Príncipe and Annobon. From the early 16th century onwards, slaves were also being imported, in increasing numbers, from the Kwanza River and Luanda. However, because of the steady decline in the sugar plantation production in the latter half of the 16th century, together with foreign

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competition in slave trading, it is very unlikely that slaves were imported to São Tomé after around 1700, and redistribution to the other islands would have ceased long before that. This being the case, one can now consider the ethnolinguistic background at the trading ports in question, in order to estimate the language input in the slave population on the Gulf of Guinea Islands. The language communities are as follows: Edo The Edo ethnolinguistic group corresponds to the ‘kingdom’ of Benin, which in the 16th century also ruled over the area occupied by the Itsekiri, including the port of Ughoton, and the Forcados River. The people and the language have in the past also been referred to as ‘Bini’ (e.g. by Ferraz), but the recognised ethnonym is nowadays Edo. The language, formerly classified as a member of the Kwa family, is now considered to be part of the Benue-Congo group (cf Elugbe 1989b). Itsekiri The Itsekiri occupy the coastal area roughly between the first three of the five ‘Slave Rivers’, including the ‘Fermoso’, or Benin River; they were referred to by Duarte Pacheco Pereira as “Huela” (Pereira 1988: 152). Although direct trading with them by the Portuguese is not documented, it is known that the Edo sold slaves acquired from that ethnolinguistic group. Their language is closely related to Yoruba, one of the principal languages of modern Nigeria - indeed, “in a list of over 100 common Itsekiri words over 90% are almost identical with Yoruba words” (Lloyd, in Bradbury & Lloyd 1957: 174). Ijo The Ijo ethnolinguistic group occupies the coastal area of the Niger Delta between the Forcados River and the Bonny River (‘Rio Real’). They are referred to by Duarte Pacheco Pereira as the “Jós”, with whom trading was undertaken both at the Forcados River and the Rio Real; despite this, no less than three times, Pereira (1988: 152-53, 155-56) states that the Ijo were cannibals. The Ijo language is part of the Benue-Congo family, but it is not closely related to either Edo or Yoruba/Itsikeri. Kikongo10 The Kikongo ethnolinguistic group occupies a large area on both sides of the Congo River: Portuguese contact and trade in the 16th century was concentrated on the South side of the River at Mpindi, where the main variety of the Kikongo language was Kishikongo. In any case, the varieties of Kikongo are closely related and are normally mutually comprehensible. Kimbundu11 The division between the Kikongo and Kimbundu ethnolinguistic groups was normally considered to be the Dande River, North of Luanda; as indicated above, direct trading with this area, albeit clandestine, was flourishing throughout the 16th century, but it must also be borne in mind that the Kongo often obtained slaves through raids into neighbouring ethnic groups, including the Mbundu (Birmingham 1966: 26). The Kim-bundu language is spoken over a large area inland from Luanda and the Kwanza River; it

10 In common with modern practice for Bantu names, I use Kikongo (which includes the class prefix ki-) to

refer to the language but Kongo to refer to the people and the territory they occupy. 11 This is not to be confused with the neighbouring language, Umbundu, from whose community some slaves

were traded to the Portuguese at Luanda..

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is reasonably close to Kikongo, as a loosely related Bantu language, and to a small extent the two languages are mutually comprehensible. One can now estimate that on São Tomé there would have been a mixture of Edo, Kikongo and Kimbundu among the slave population, with Edo, the language of the early input on the island, being added to, and later replaced, by the two Bantu languages in the course of the 17th century. On Príncipe, however, one can expect a higher proportion of Edo-speakers, because of the direct import to the island of slaves from the Niger Delta between 1514 and 1518, and also because redistribution from São Tomé had probably ceased by about 1550, before the boom in imports from the Bantu-speaking areas. Meanwhile, there was probably one small shipment of slaves to Annobon from São Tomé, and depending on the timing, this would include proportionate numbers of Edo- and Bantu-speaking slaves. As for the Angolar community, the majority would consist of Kimbundu-, or possibly Kikongo-speaking slaves, from the shipwreck of the vessel from ‘Angola’, though there could well be some imput from Edo-speakers as well from the runaway plantation slaves who joined them, probably around the 1550s. Evidence from this conjectured pattern of ethnolinguistic input into the Gulf of Guinea Creoles can be obtained from an examination of the distribution of non-Portuguese (i.e. African-derived) lexical items in the four creoles. In Appendix 2, I have listed all those lexical items I could find which have African origin. However, the list is necessarily incomplete, as a result of the limited resources currently available, not only for the creoles themselves, but also for the African languages.12 The latter would appear to be largely limited to three (groups of) languages: Edo (including a few items from closely related Edoid languages), Bantu languages (mainly Kikongo and Kimbundu), and Yoruba.13 Of the identifiable etyma, I have calculated the proportions as follows:

Table 1. Percentages of words identified as African by source languages

São Tomé: Bantu 56%, Edo 35%, Yoruba 6%, others 3%; Príncipe: Bantu 23%,14 Edo 65%, Yoruba 10%, others 2%; Annobon: Bantu 52%, Edo 38%, Yoruba 6%, others 4%; Angolar Bantu 92%, Edo 6% , Yoruba and others 2%.

The large proportion of Edo-derived words in Príncipe Creole is clearly the result of the exclusive contract between Benin and this island as indicated above. In contrast, Angolar has only 6% of Edo-derived words compared with 92% Bantu-derived, while both the São Tomé and Annobon Creoles have more than 50% Bantu-derive items and a little less than 40% from Edo. Thus the proportions of African ethnolinguistic input projected above are borne out: São Tomé has a greater proportion of Bantu items than Edo, reflecting the rapid growth of plantation production in the mid-16th century, and the increasing import of slaves from Mpinda and Luanda; on Annobon, because the proportions are roughly equal, the redistribution of slaves to the island from São Tomé probably took place in the first quarter of the 16th century; meanwhile, on Príncipe, the projection that Edo-speakers would outnumber Bantu-speakers is borne out by the figures quoted above. As for the

12 There are 35 Angolar items which have cognates in one or more of the other Gulf of Guinea Creoles. A

further 343 items of African origin, identified in Maurer (1995) and/or Rougé (2004), are almost exclusively of Kimbundu origin.

13 The Yoruba items could be accounted for by the fact that slaves were traded from the Itsikiri, whose language, asmentioned above, is very close to Yoruba. Given Yoruba’simportance as a regional language, it may also have been known as a second language to some Edo speakers.

14 I had earlier (Ladhams 2003) calculated the proportions of lexical items in Príncipe as being Edo 63% and Bantu 37% but this has now been revised thanks to data obtained from Maurer (p c, 2007).

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figures for Angolar, unsurprisingly the vast majority of non-Portuguese lexical items is Kimbundu in origin. Further support for this interpretation of the data can be found by comparing the origins of items currently known to exist in only one of these languages: in Príncipe Creole, 76% of the latter are of Edo origin whereas the majority is of Bantu origin in the other three: 81% in São Tomé Creole, 67% in Annobon Creole, and ca. 96% in Angolar (P Baker, p c). To go back to the possible source for article agglutination, and particularly the question as to why there is such a large number of examples in Pr, one should now seek an explanation in examining the Edo language, to see if there is any feature that could give rise to the article agglutination in this creole. Indeed there is such a feature. While the agglutinated articles in the Indian Ocean French Creoles could be explained by the reanalysis of Bantu noun class markers, it should be remembered that French articles, and Bantu noun class markers are structured CV. This is not the case in the Gulf of Guinea Creoles, where the Portuguese articles consist of V only, so article agglutination cannot be attibuted to Bantu influence. On the other hand, in Edo, “nouns invariably have a prefix attached to the stem” (Elugbe 1989b:199), and those prefixes always consist of a vowel only, and that vowel is very often [u] (1989b:200).15 This of course corresponds very closely with the Pr data for article agglutination.17 Therefore, one can safely say that there is indeed a case of African influence in a particular feature of the Gulf of Guinea Creoles, and the origin of that influence can be ascribed to the Edo input into those creoles. 4. Analyses by word class and origins Angolar is excluded from the analyses which follow because I do not have complete data on the word classes of the many items which are attested only in this language. Words are sorted into three groups; 1. nouns; 2. adjectives, verbs, and adverbs (abbre-viated here as ”adjverbs”); and 3. others, comprising what are traditionally known as closed classes but also including ideophones.

Table 2. Analysis of all items by word class and Creole nouns adjverbs others total

ST 63 (60%) 35 (33%) 8 ( 7%) 106 (100%) Pr 51 (55%) 36 (39%) 5 ( 6%) 92 (100%) Ann 52 (79%) 14 (21%) 0 66 (100%)

The proportion of nouns indicated above is undoubtedly much lower than is found in many Caribbean Creoles. However, a proper assessment of the significance of this requires comparisons to be made with a wider geographical range of languages. The editors attempt to do this in the final article in this volume.

Table 3. Analysis of all items by Creole and source language Bantu Edo Yoruba Others

ST 56% 36% 6% 2% Pr 24% 67% 9% 0% Ann 52% 38% 6% 4%

15 See also Elugbe (1989a) for further details, including his reconstruction of noun class markers consisting of

an initial vowel in Proto-Edoid. 17 Hagemeijer (2003: 167; 2009) suggests that the addition of an initial vowel to nouns in Pr is not the result of

article agglutination, but rather a question of vowel harmony. The data presented here would seem to prove this not to be the case. For details on vowel harmony in Edo and Proto-Edoid, see Elugbe (1989a: 47-48, 118-19).

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Table 3 is the same as Table 1 except that figures for Angolar are excluded for reasons stated above. The information is repeated here to avoid the reader having to turn back the page in order to make comparisons with the following tables. Note that all percentages are give to the nearest whole number with the consequences here and below that 0% may in some cases mean less than 0.5% rather than zero, and that, if percentages are totalled, they may in one or two cases add up to 99% or 101%.

Table 4. Analysis of nouns by Creole and source language

Bantu Edo Yoruba Others ST 65% [56%] 29% [36%] 3% [6%] 3% [2%] Pr 30% [24%] 58% [67%] 12% [9%] 0% [0%] Ann 53% [52%] 37% [38%] 6% [6%] 4% [4%]

The figures in square brackets here indicate the percentage contribution of each source language to the vocabulary as a whole. Thus it can be seen that the Bantu contribution to nouns is appreciably greater than its overall input while, for Edo, the reverse it true. There will be further comment on this following Table 6. Note that the figures for Annobon are remarkably similar to its overall averages.

Table 5. Analysis of adjverbs by Creole and source language Bantu Edo Yoruba Others

ST 51% [56%] 40% [36%] 8% [6%] 1% [2%] Pr 15% [24%] 78% [67%] 7% [9%] 0% [0%] Ann 49% [52%] 39% [38%] 9% [6%] 2% [4%]

Rather predictably, Table 5 shows the opposite of the Table 6 insofar as the Bantu contribution to “adjverbs” is less than, and the Edo contribution greater than, their respective overall averages. There will be further comment on this below. The figure for Annobon are again strikingly similar to its overall averages.

Table 6. Analysis of other items by Creole and source language Bantu Edo Yoruba Others

ST 19% [56%] 81% [36%] 0% [6%] 0% [2%] Pr 20% [24%] 80% [67%] 0% [9%] 0% [4%] Ann 0% [52%] 0% [38%] 0% [6%] 0% [4%]

What is immediately striking about Table 6 is that the dominant contributor to São Tomé’s closed class items is Edo rather than Bantu languages, and that the percentage figure is almost identical to the Príncipe figure. Also notable is that fact that no items in this class have yet been identified for Annobon. Taking Tables 4, 5, and 6 together, there is a fall in the Bantu contribution to São Tomé from 65% for nouns, to 51% for adjverbs, and to 19% for closed class items whereas there is a rise in the Edo contribution to Príncipe from 29% for nouns, to 78% for adjverbs, and to 80% for closed class items. It is widely accepted that nouns are the class of words most easily borrowed from one language into another. If that is true, having an increasing proportion of Edo-derived items for both adjverbs and close class items –which is true of both São Tomé and Príncipe – might be interpreted as an indication that Edo played a more important or at least more specialized role than Bantu languages in the formation of these two creoles. While the information about the peopling of Príncipe presented earlier can readily account for this on that island, it is not obvious that there can be simple of this in São Tomé. Before attempting to answer this question, data from other contact

41

languages needs to be examined. This will be untertaken by the editors in the final article in this book. 5. Conclusions: the African contribution to Portuguese Creoles Studies of the African influence in the Gulf of Guinea Creoles were made by Ferraz in the 1970s and 80s,18 showing that apart from the lexical items of African origin, there was a number of grammatical features in the languages in which parallels could be drawn from appropriate ‘substrates’. It should be pointed out that Ferraz, as an avowed ‘substratist’, was anxious to disprove any ‘universalist’ influence in these creoles, particularly in relation to Bickerton’s Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (see especially Ferraz 1984). Therefore, one should be cautious about accepting all the many examples he gives of African influence. However, in fact he has very little to say about article agglutination in the Gulf of Guinea Creoles, and that is confined to Ferraz (1979). Other descriptions of the four creoles do refer to article agglutination: Günther (1973) and Maurer (2009) on Pr, De Granda (1994: 424-39) and Maurer (1995) on Ang, and Schang (2003) on ST, but there is little or no discussion of possible African influence. Only in Parkvall (2000) and Ladhams (2003) is there any detailed and reliable account of this influence in the Gulf of Guinea Creoles. Parkvall includes some phonological features, with differences noted between Pr and the other three creoles, pronoun forms, and especially the double negative construction, analysed in detail in Hagemeijer (2003). Ladhams (2003) includes all these features, plus the use of ideophones of African origin in the creoles, as well as reduplication, also analysed in more detail in Ladhams et al. (2003).

It is clear, therefore, that the Gulf of Guinea Creoles do exhibit quite a number of features which can be attributed to African influence, but what of the other African Portuguese-based Creoles? Ladhams (2003) also examines African influence in Capeverdean Creole but concludes: ‘substrate’ influence in Capeverdean Creole is not particularly evident: indicative of this is the fact that in percentage terms (of the whole vocabulary) the number of lexical items in the creole identifiable as being of African origin is quite small, while at the other linguistic levels, the influence is at best slight.” (2003: 138).19 There has little research done on the adstrate African influence in Guinea-Bissau Creole: one might expect that being located on the African mainland, adjacent to at least 20 different African languages, there would be considerable African influence on the creole, but my impression is that there is as little influence as in the related Capeverdean Creole. Possibly the key factor is that no one or two African languages are dominant over the others in Guinea-Bissau, and therefore the influence on the creole is very limited.20 But another question arises: why should there be so much more African influence in the Gulf of Guinea Creoles than in the other two? The answer lies, I feel sure, in differences in the sociohistorical background: the plantation system in the Gulf of Guinea was so intense that it led to the formation of a separate slave community, with its own identity, and therefore separate languages (creoles) of their own.21 Consequently, the creoles in turn would be more subject to African influence.

18 Papers on the African influence on the creoles respectively in Príncipe (1975) and Annobon (1984), as well

as a section on this subject in his book on São Tomé Creole (1979: 110-15). 19 On the question of the number of lexical items of African origin, note that Brazilian Portuguese contains at

least 2,500 items of African origin (see Schneider 1991), but there is no evidence at all that Portuguese was ever creolized in Brazil.

20 However, Rougé (2004) gives 333 lexical items of non-Portuguese origin in Guinea-Bissau Creole, compared with only 145 in Capeverdean Creole.

21 For a detailed statement of this position, see Ladhams (2003).

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Since the mid-1980s, there has been a great debate on the role of ‘substrate’ influence in creole formation: see especially Muysken & Smith (1986) and Mufwene (1993). However, in both these volumes, there is no mention of the Portuguese-based Creoles, and until now the dicussion has been largely confined to the English- and French-based Creoles. This also the case with the recent publication by self-affirmed ‘superstratists’: Chaudenson (2001, 2003) and Mufwene (2001, 2005). There is no mention of Portuguese-based Creoles, and though Mufwene does acknowledge some ‘substrate’ influence in the English- and French-based Creoles, Chaudenson, as shown above in section 1, seems extremely reluctant to accept any such influence.22 More than 20 years ago,23 Baker was somewhat pessimistic about assessing the African influence, at least in the French-based Creoles: “Identifying the African contribution to French-based Creoles in areas other than the lexicon is a very difficult matter. The basic problem is that we do not know enough about how creole languages originated and evolved” (1993: 140). By 2000, this problem had been overcome to a great extent, as shown by the detailed overall survey of African influence in creole languages in Parkvall (2000). Nevertheless, Parkvall also sounds a note of pessimism when he states, in his concluding discussion: “The first thing that I myself learnt from this study is that there are far fewer clearly substrate-induced structures in the Atlantic Creoles than I had expected to find” (2000: 154). It is hoped that this article can make a significant contribution to the debate on African influence, by showing that in the Portuguese-based Creoles at least, that influence is evident.

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–––– 1988 Combien y a-t-il eu de genèses créoles à base lexicale française? Etudes Créoles 10(2): 60-76.

–––– 1993 Assessing the African contribution to French-based Creoles. Mufwene, S (ed.), 123-55.

Batalha, Graciete 1988 Glossário do Dialecto Macaense. Macao: Instituto Cultural de Macao. Baxter, Alan N & De Silva, Patrick 2004 A dictionary of Kristang. Canberra: Pacific

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Missionary Society / Trübner & Co. Birmingham, David 1966 Trade and Conflict in Angola. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bradbury, R E & Lloyd, P C 1957 The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-speaking Peoples of South-

Western Nigeria, [& The Itsekiri]. London: International African Institute. Brásio, António (ed.) 1953 Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Vol. II. Lisbon: Agência Geral

do Ultramar. Chaudenson, Robert 2001 Creolization of Language and Culture. London & New York:

Routledge. –––– 2003 La créolisation: théorie, applications, implications. Paris: L’Harmattan.

22 Neumann-Holzschuh (2007: 384) states that: “Chaudenson, who, although often considered a “Euro-

centrist”, does not deny that African languages may have played a considerable role in the development of creoles”. However this is clearly not the case in Chaudenson (2003: 262-69).

23 The paper published as Baker (1993) was first presented at a conference in Athens, Georgia in 1987.

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Clements, J Clancy 1995 The Genesis of a Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo 1900 Dialecto Indo-Português de Ceilão. Lisbon: Imprensa

Nacional. –––– 1906 Dialecto Indo-Português do Norte. Revista Lusitana 9: 142-66, 193-228. De Granda, Germán 1985 Estudios de Lingüística Afro-Románica. Valladolid: Universidad

de Valladolid. –––– 1994 Español de América, español de África y hablas criollas hispánicas: cambios, contactos

y contextos. Madrid: Gredos. Elugbe, Ben Ohi 1989a Comparative Edoid: Phonology and Lexicon. Port Harcourt:

University of Port Harcourt Press. –––– 1989b Edoid. Bendor-Samuel, John (ed.), The Niger-Congo Languages. Lanham et al.:

University Press of America, 291-304. Fernandes, Valentim 1940 O manuscrito de Valentim Fernandes. Lisbon: Academia

Portuguesa da História. Ferraz, Luiz Ivens 1975 African influences on Principense Creole. Valkhoff, Marius (ed.)

Miscelânea Luso-Africana. Lisbon: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, 153-64.

–––– 1979 The Creole of São Tomé Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. –––– 1984 The Substrate of Annobonese. African Studies, 43(2): 119-36. Grant, Anthony P 1995 Article agglutination in Creole French: a wider perspective.

Baker, Philip (ed.) From Contact to Creole and Beyond. London: University of Westminster Press, 149-76.

Günther, Wilfried 1973 Das portugiesische Kreolisch der Ilha do Príncipe. Marburg: Marburger Studien zur Afrika- und Asienkunde.

Hagemeijer, Tjerk 2003 A negação nos crioulos do Golfo da Guiné: aspectos sincrónicos e diacrónicos. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 2: 151-78.

–––– 2009 Initial vowel agglutination in the Gulf of Guinea creoles. Aboh, Enoch O & Smith, Norval (eds.) Complex Processes in New Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 29-50.

Ladhams, John 2003 The Formation of the Portuguese Plantation Creoles. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Westminster.

Ladhams, J, Hagemeijer, T, Maurer, P & Post, M 2003 Reduplication in the Gulf of Guinea Creoles. Kouwenberg, Silvia (ed.) Twice as Meaningful. London: Battlebridge, 165-74.

Laman, Karl Edvard 1936 Dictionnaire kikongo-français. Brussels: Georges van Campenhout.

Le Guennec, Grégoire & Valente, José Francisco 1972 Dicionário português-umbundu. Luanda: Instituto de Investigação Cientifica de Angola.

Lopes da Silva, Baltasar 1957 O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional. Maia, António da Silva 1964 Dicionário complementar português-kimbundu-kikongo.

Cucujães: Editorial Missões. Maurer, Philippe 1992 L’apport lexical bantou en angolar. Afrikanische Arbeitspapiere 29:

163-74. –––– 1995 L’angolar. Un créole afro-portugais parlé à São Tomé. Hamburg: Buske. –––– 2009 Principense. London & Colombo: Battlebridge.

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McWhorter, John & Parkvall, Mikael 2002 Pas tout à fait du français: une étude créole. Études créoles 25(1): 179-231.

Melzian, Hans 1937 A concise dictionary of the Bini language of Southern Nigeria. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

Mufwene, Salikoko (ed.) 1993 Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties. Athens GA: University of Georgia Press.

–––– 2001 The Ecology of Language Evolution Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –––– 2005 Créoles, écologie sociale, évolution linguistique. Paris: L’Harmattan Muraz, Gaston [ca. 1931] Vocabulaire du patois arabe tchadien ou “tourkou” et des dialectes

sara-madjinngaye et sara-m’baye. Paris: Charles Lavauzelle. Muysken, Pieter & Smith, Norval (eds) 1986 Universals versus substrata in creole genesis.

Amsterdam: Benjamins. Negreiros, António de Almada 1895 Historia ethnographica da Ilha de S. Thomé. Lisbon: José

Bastos. Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid 2007 Review of Mufwene (2005). Journal of Pidgin and Creole

Languages 22: 382-86. Parkvall, Mikael 2000 Out of Africa. London: Battlebridge. Pereira, Duarte Pacheco 1988 Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. Lisbon: Academia Portuguesa da

História. Rougé, Jean-Louis 2004 Dictionnaire étymologique des créoles portugais d’Afrique. Paris:

Karthala. Ryder, Alan 1969 Benin and the Europeans. London: Longmans. Schang, Emmanuel 2003 L’émergence des créoles portugais du Golfe de Guinée. Villeneuve

d’Ascq: Septentrion. Schneider, John T 1991 Dictionary of African Borrowings in Brazilian Portuguese. Hamburg:

Buske. Schuchardt, Hugo 1890 Ueber das Malaioportugiesische von Batavia und Tugu.

Sitzungsberichte Wien 122: 1-256. Speedy, Karin 2007 Réunion Creole in New Caledonia – what influence on Tayo? Journal

of Pidgin and Creole Languages 22: 193-230. Swartenbroeckx, Pierre 1973 Dictionnaire kikongo et kituba-français. Bandundu. Valkhoff, Marius F 1966 Studies in Portuguese and Creole. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand

University Press.

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APPENDIX 1

AGGLUTINATED ARTICLES IN THE GULF OF GUINEA CREOLES

São Tomé Príncipe Annobon Angolar Portuguese English

abyá a beira (river) bank afé afé a fé faith aglasa a graça grace, name alê arê alê el-rei king aleduña el-rei doninha weasel apá a pá spade, shovel idintxi o dente tooth ifi o fio thread ikyabu ukyabu o quiabo okra imin o milho maize injezu o jejum fasting irizi o nariz nose isengi o sangue blood ite a terra land ivin o vinho wine ixize a cinza ash oali uari o ar air omali umwe omal o mar sea opé opé opé o pé foot opo opó opó ompo o pó dust opó o polvo octopus oryó oryô o rio river, diarrhoea osé osé osé onɵe o céu heaven, sky otés *o testa forehead ubaaku o buraco hole ubaasu o baixo underneath ubaasu o braço arm

ubanku o banco bench ubasu o baço spleen ubaw o barro clay

ubên os bens goods ubuka *o boca mouth ubwê o boi ox udedu o dedo finger udêntu o dentro inside [prep.] udôdô o doido stupid [adj.] udyabu o diabo devil ufaka *o faca knife ufatu o fato suit ufeu ofelu o ferro iron, metal ufôgô o fogo fire ufundu o fundo bottom, base ufya *o folha leaf ugagu o gago stutter [v.] ugalu o galo rooster ugatu o gato cat ukabu o cabo end

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São Tomé Príncipe Annobon Angolar Portuguese English ukaku o casco turtle shell ukalu o caldo broth ukampu o campo field ukaru o carro car ukantu o canto eyebrow uku uku o cu arse ukuru o escuro dark [adj.], darkness ukurú o cru raw [adj.] ukwatu o quarto room uladu o lado side ulasu o laço knot, ribbon ulatu o lado [?] way, path ulensu o lenço headscarf uman oman *o mão hand umatu o mato forest umpan um pão bread, loaf umundu o mundo world umuña uma unha fingernail unfenu o inferno hell unôtxi *o noite night unu unú ono o nu naked [adj.] unwan onuja *o lua moon upá opá o pau tree, stick upan ãpã o pão bread upanu o pano cloth upasu o passo step upetu o espeto spit, fork upêtu o peito chest urabu o rabo tail uramu o ramo branch (tree) uratu o rato mouse, rat uremu o remo oar, paddle urôsô o arroz rice usaku o saco sack, bag usalu o sal salt usan o chão ground usolu o sol sun usuva *o chuva rain utabu *o tábua board, plank utasu o tacho pan uventu oventu o vento wind uwê o olho eye uzên osojo o joelho knee zálima zálima as almas ghost zonda zonda as ondas wave Sources:

Gulf of Guinea Valkhoff (1966: 92, 133); Schang (2003: 103-13); Rougé (2004) São Tomé Negreiros (1895: 355-69); Ferraz (1979: 27) Príncipe Günther (1973); Maurer (p c 2007, 2009) Annobon Ferraz (1984: 125-26); De Granda (1985: 159-65, 171-79; 1994: 433) Angolar Maurer (1995).

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APPENDIX 2

LEXICAL ITEMS OF AFRICAN ORIGIN IN THE GULF OF GUINEA CREOLES

ST Pr Ann Ang English etymon African language(s) a a a [ind. pr.] a Edo ába abá trunk, branch aba Twi/Igbo akê clay pot àkhé Edo akelé akaré frog ekire/akere/akiri Edo/Yoruba/Igbo andjí adí andji palm-nut edin/adin Edo/Yoruba anká kara áxala anka crab nkala Kikongo baa burn [vb.] bàá Edo bambí bambí pneumonia m-bambi Kikongo/Kimbundu bangá palm-oil sauce bannga Kikongo bánsa bansa hook m-basa/lu-basa Kikongo/Kimbundu bánsa mbasá mbasá rib lu-banji/m-banji Kikongo/Kimbundu baya bayubya baya bewitch, spell gbye Yoruba belé cut, pierce bele Edo benku benku tortoise ? Edo? bi shove (v.) bi Edo bô ba bô where is? vbòó a Edo bobó bobó bobó bobó ‘piggy-back’ bobo Edo bôbô bôbô bôbô bôbô ripe, red booba Kikongo bomon hurry off bomon Edo búdu ubúdu búdu stone bodo Edoid búnga tree sp. m-bunga Kikongo byê byê byê cook (v.) biê Edo byogo slip mioghon Edo dedé embrace dede Edo dindin elderly person ódèdè Edo dúmu udumu pound, grind dunvu Edo éli moonshine - xeli ‘Proto-Bantu’ fefé suck fefeña Kimbundu fingí fingí mouse m-fingi Kikongo fó go away fó Ewe fofó fofó fofó fofó winnow fofo/hoho Yoruba/Edo fúba fúba maize flour m-fuba/fuba Kikongo/Kimbundu fufú pounded yam fufu Yoruba fugú fugú turn (soil) hùgú Edo fumá fumá fumá swell fuma Kikongo fúnda fundá funda bundle funda Kikongo gbê crush gbé Edo gegé tree sp. mu-ngyengye Kikongo gó gó complain go Edo gogó gogó ngongó congratulate gogo Edo gólo goló goló search, dig gwalo Edo gomon germinate mon Edo gyen leak gin Edo ibi charcoal ibi Edo ídu ídu ídu louse iru Edo igbê ogé body egbe Edo igbegbé snail igbin Yoruba

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ST Pr Ann Ang English etymon African language(s) iglígu igugu ígogo idigô smoke igogo Edo iki hill oke Edo ikilí ikiri pad (on head) kili Bantu(?) iku iku rubbish iku Edo ingléva bweva twins ivin eva Edo inen/ine ine ane they ian Edo íze izé íse/áse idhe crayfish, shrimp ize Edo jambá sling lukaámba Kikongo jojó horn oko Edo jojoló cut (v.) -kohol-a Kimbundu jongo banana sp. koongo Kikongo jongul bracelet lu-kongolo Kikongo kêtê tiny xerhé Edo ketéketé very old kya-kete Kikongo kili coil (v.) kii ri Edo kisamá scorpion ki-sama Kikongo kiséngle hatchet n-sengele Kikongo kitxibá kintxiba kitxíba banana sp. tiba/tʃiba Kikongo kite a little/small kere/kete Yoruba/Kikongo klón-klón koko neck, throat gogongo Yoruba klókoto krokotó kokotó cockroach kokoto Kikongo kó resemble xo Edo kôkô kôkô crawl ku-dikoka Kikongo kóni blow with fist n-kome Kikongo kumbé large drum n-kuúmbi Kikongo kumbili tree sp. n-kuúmbi Kikongo kundu ukundu pubis n-kundu Kikongo kunkunú bedbug ki-ngunu-ngunu Kimbundu kusá scratch, scabies -kús-a Kikongo kútu kutú thicken (food) -kukuta Kikongo kwa be heavy xua Edo kwali ugberi basket ? Edo? larya be bitter riara Edo lelé lelé lelé follow lele/le Edo/Yoruba lemá overcast lema Kikongo levá twins ivi eva Edo lóla turn off, detour -kondoloka/bolola Kikongo/Kimbundu loló completely ulolo Kikongo loló loló lolo lick lalo Edo lululú lululu black (ideoph.) duduudu/nunuu Edo makoyá scurf kooya Kikongo makúku makuku hearthstones ma-kuku Kikongo makutá palm-leaf bowl nkutu Kikongo mankweté smart (ma)wete Kikongo masánga necklace mu-sánga Kikongo mbá hang, hook ba Edo mene be sweet myemye Edo mikondó baobab n-kondo Kikongo mukumblí tree sp. mu-kumbi Kikongo muléle fishing net mu-lele Kimbundu munjá mundyá myilá stand, stop mu dia Edo munkén múnkele dove sp. mu-nkele Kikongo musámbi dried fish mu-nsambu Kikongo

49

ST Pr Ann Ang English etymon African language(s) muténde mutende young palm tree mu-tende Kikongo mutete palm-leaf basket mu-tete Kimbundu mwíndu bush sp. mw-indu Kikongo ngándu ngandú ngandu shark n-gandu Kikongo/Kimbundu ngembú bat n-gembo Kikongo ngené-ngené twinkling ngedi-ngedi Kikongo ngumbá jegunba ngúmba nguba groundnut n-gumba Kikongo/Kimbundu ngunú-ngunú grumble ki-ngunu-ngunu Kimbundu njánja nyányi quickly l-onjanja Umbundu nyonyón snail nyonyo Kikongo -o [respect tag] -o Edo obó ovyó ogó obo forest ogo Edo odó idó udum mortar odo Edo/Yoruba ofí/ofía witchcraft ubio Efik ógo yard ugbo Edo ógogo pot ikoko Yoruba óka uká oxá banyan tree oka Edo óke ôkyê okyé íki hill oke Edo/Yoruba okó oxó calabash uko Edo okori woodworm oxoye Edo ôkpô ogó clearing ogo Edo otó neck urhu Edo owó you (pl.) ouo Edo/Kimbundu oxál basket kwalu Kikongo óxo navel uvu ihue Edo pénu-pénu eyelash, eyelid ipenpenju Yoruba pete flat perhe Edo péte-péte peté-peté soft, gentle pete-pete Kikongo pimbí pímpi penis pimbi Kimbundu póto-póto potopotó drenched potopoto Ijo, Kikongo, Yoruba24 púnda pidi punda because rhun-da Edo safú sáfu safu fruit sp. n-safu Kikongo ságwa medicine man sangwa Kikongo samangungú tarantula esangangungu Kikongo selelé termite n-selele Kikongo sénkwa thekwa bug ki-nsekwa Kikongo súxu xuxu dagger, spike susu Kikongo tanga tanga loincloth tanga Kimbundu tokólo fruit sp. -tokol-a Umbundu twadu biting/acid tuisa Kimbundu tumbó large calabash n-túmbu Kikongo túmbu dust u-tumbu Kimbundu ubága baga saucepan ukpabo Edo úbua ugba fence ugba Edo ubwé ibé ogé body egbe Edo ubya spell (n.) gbeye Yoruba ufu ufu lather (v.) ihu Edo uka tree sp. okan Edo úku íku íku rubbish iku Edo ukugbá belt ukugba Edo

24 Potopoto also occurs in other West African languages, including Mandinka and Twi, and is found in a wide range of

Caribbean Creoles as well as in Turku Pidgin Arabic.

50

ST Pr Ann Ang English etymon African language(s) úkwe igbé ikwe seed ikpe Edo

ulalu skin rash alalu Edo uruba boil (n.) uruvba Edo ururu umbilical cord eru Edo

utú utú mushroom utun, otu Edo uu thread oru Edo vá va split va Edo vanganá stagger vungana Kikongo vúgu vugu struggle out vuku Kikongo vunvú vunvú buzz m-vofom Fang? vunvún bunbun bee mvuvu Kikongo vuvá howl boba Kikongo wangá wangá wangá drizzle, spill - mwanga Kikongo xambá climbing ring lukaámba Kikongo xóngo banana sp. kóongo Kikongo xongúl bracelet lu-kongolò Kikongo xoxó horn oko Edo xololo cut (v.) -kohol-a Umbundu xoxoso elbow kokói [Bantu] yangá tear (v.) yanza Kikongo yé please (v.) ye Edo yô yô much, many yo Edo zámba dhanba elephant n-zamba Kikongo zowó/zó then zevo Kikongo zúmbi dhunbi ghost zumbi/n-zumbi Kikongo/Kimbundu Sources: Gulf of Guinea Rougé (2004) São Tomé Ferraz (1979: 90-100) Príncipe Günther (1973); Ferraz (1975); Maurer (p c 2007, 2009) Annobon Ferraz (1984); De Granda (1985: 159-65) Angolar Maurer (1992; 1995). Edo Melzian (1937) Kikongo Bentley (1887); Laman (1936); Maia (1964); Swartenbroeckx (1973) Kimbundu Maia (1964) Umbundu Le Guennec & Valente (1972)

John Ladhams has spent most of his working life in Portuguese-speaking countries, particularly as a Lecturer in English Language at universities in

Portugal and Brazil. In the past ten years he has taught linguistics, translation, and English language at three of London’s Universities.

His research has concentrated on Portuguese as a contact language in Africa, Asia and South America. <john_ladhams@yahoo.co.uk>