Ce mercredi, nous recevons la visite de Maud Devos, linguiste du musée royal de l’Afrique Centrale de Tervuren (Belgique), spécialiste en linguistique historique et comparative des langues bantoues.
Coconuts in Bantu languages. The story of the Cocos nucifera L. as told through language.
Summary: Coconuts are often assumed to have been introduced to Madagascar, the Comoros and the East African coast by Austronesian seafarers. However, recent genetic research suggests independent origins of the cultivated coconut in both the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Still, East African coconuts show remarkable genetic admixture reflecting prolonged and diversified contact situations through the Indian Ocean trade network (Gunn et al. 2011). This paper aims to add (a more detailed) linguistic layer to the story of the ‘tree of life’ along the East African coast and beyond. Linguistics is interpreted broadly and refers to intangible cultural heritage as entrenched in language. Data from oral literature (e.g. Hichens) will be included as much as possible. Generic names of the tree and its fruits as well as specialized vocabulary (e.g., Nabhany 1985) related to them will be considered. The historically and genetically based claims that coconuts were introduced to the West African coast by European travelers seem straightforwardly confirmed by linguistic data, with names for the coconut either related to Portuguese coco or involving compounds like mbanga mputu (< ‘European palmnut’) in Vili (H16d, Derouet 1896). More difficult to interpret is the Swahili nazi with cognates throughout East Africa. The weak suggestion of borrowing from Portuguese noz ‘nut’ seems unlikely. What about Arabian/Persian influence as suggested by Allibert (2007)? Or, is there a connection with *-gàdí the Proto-Bantu stem for oil palm nut following a recurrently attested semantic transfer whereby the name of a known species is applied to a ‘new’ species (Bostoen 2005).
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