Tony Barros wrote: > Mervyn Lobo is absolutely right - Muziki is the Swahili word for music and > Ngoma is is a dance and on a wider spectrum- cultural events. As a former > National Serviceman - voluntary armed forces- I can attest to this. > (Goma is a town in one of the Congos- I do not which one). -snip- > It must also be borne in mind that Swahili has certain expressions that >do > not exist in the English language . A great example is the issue of twins. > In > Swahili, the first born is called Kurwa and the second is known as Doto. ---------------------------------
Folks, Tony Barros is being modest here. He speaks Kiswahili better than most locals. I have seen him change, mid-sentence, from the mindset of a Coastal person, to a Lake Zone person, to a Southern Highlands person when he sensed where the person he was speaking to, originated from. As for stuff that exists in E. Africa only, here is another example. There is no mswahili sailor who will set sail with an odd number of females on his boat, as such a trip is sure to end in disaster. This presented a problem when we had to hire a local fisherman to guide us to the good spots in the days before GPS as every time we went on a fishing expidetion, some of the fishermen would bring their wives (yes, some had more than one) or girlfriends. We would not know if we had an even or odd number of females until they arrived at the jetty. If there was an odd number, the issue would be resolved by also taking aboard a female cat. As most fishing stories are borderline unbelievable, here is the proof in two thousand words. http://www.flickr.com/photos/45002663@N00/1564809855/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/45002663@N00/1565698746/in/photostream/ Since this tread started with music and song, here is another offbeat memory. There was a popular Tiatrist who would request to sing Konkani songs every time a band played at the D.I. One day a local band was playing and the tiatrist went up to the band and asked, "Nataka kuvimba." What he wanted to say was, "Nataka kuimba." One means, I want to sing, the other means, I want to get swollen (pregnant). ML03 1331EST
