Somewhere in Africa... Trivia Quiz

Answer: via the Spanish/Portuguese, who adopted the Wolof word "banaana"

Bananas the fruit have their botanical origin in the Spice islands and Southeast Asia. They have been known in Africa since pre-history. The word "banana" is certainly West African in origin, probably from the Wolof language. Bananas and the name were brought to Portugal and Europe in the late 1400s. They were taken to the New World in 1516.

Derivations of banana like "banana-peel" (1851) and "banana-skin" (1874) are American in origin and are a marker of them left as litter on the ground. causing falls. "Banana-split" is also American, tracing back to a diner recipe in 1905. "Top banana" is from the show business in the 50s. "Banana" is slang. in this setting, for a comedian.

This question was slipped into the quiz by Phoenix Rising's "low banana" 1nn1.

Answer: raffia

Raffia palms are native to tropical regions of Africa, especially the island country of Madagascar. The strong fiber produced from their leaf fronds is used for a variety of purposes, and is particularly important in tree grafting. According to some sources, the name of the genus (Raphia) comes from the Greek "raphis", meaning needle. However, for the majority of sources the origin of the plants' and the fiber's name lies in the Malagasy word "rafia" or "rofia". In its modern form "raffia", the word was first attested in the 1860s.

Malagasy is the language spoken by the vast majority of the population of Madagascar. It is an outlier among the languages of Africa, as it is related to Malay and the languages spoken in the Philippines.

The word "jute" comes from Bengali, while "hemp" is of Germanic origin, and "sisal" is the name of a port in the Yucatán Peninsula.

LadyNym of Phoenix Rising's Red Crew skillfully wove this question into the quiz.

Answer: an antelope

"Bongo" is an interesting case (though far from being unique in the English dictionary) of a word that has two different meanings and two separate etymologies - though both of them originated in the African continent. The name of the hand drums - used in pairs and held between the player's knees - is believed by some scholars to have derived from the Bantu word for "drum", "ngoma" or "mgombo".The word, however, entered English from Latin American Spanish (where it is spelled "bongó") in the 1920s.

The name of the large antelope (Tragelaphus eurycerus) native to West and Central Africa is believed to originate from Kele, a Bantu language spoken in Gabon. Its earliest known use in English is a few decades older than that of the musical term - dating from 1861, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

LadyNym of Phoenix Rising's Red Crew felt like dancing to some Latin American music while writing this question.

Answer: West African word for "elephant"

It is clear that the use of "jumbo" to indicate something of large size was inspired by the male forest elephant, Jumbo, who was captured somewhere in East Africa and lived at the Jardin des Plantes in France, the London Zoo, and finally was purchased by legendary showman P.T. Barnum. (Jumbo sadly died in a train accident in Ontario, Canada.) The origin of the term is fairly mysterious - as Jumbo was from East Africa, the two proposed etymologies relying on West African terms seem unlikely. Some have proposed that Jumbo's original "owner" just liked the sound of it, as he had previously named a gorilla "bumbo". "Mumbo-jumbo" has a more direct etymology from Mandingo, in the Niger region - it has come to mean "big, empty talk".

Player pusdoc of Phoenix Rising's Red Crew has flown on a jumbo jet and has endured work-related mumbo-jumbo.

Answer: gnu

The gnu or wildebeest is a type of horned ungulate antelope native to eastern and southern Africa. There are two types: the black wildebeest, also known as the white-tailed gnu, and the blue wildebeest, or brindled gnu. "Wildebeest" is derived from the Dutch for "wild beast". In the Khoekhoe language, that of a nomadic pastoralist indigenous people of southwestern Africa, the word "gnu" is most likely onomatopoeic of the grunt the animal makes.

Red Crew's smpdit is aware that you can't teach an old dog gnu tricks.

Answer: akonting

The banjo is a stringed instrument, circular with a long neck commonly supporting 5 strings. It is associated with music such as Bluegrass, folk and country, though some bands have incorporated the banjo's unique sound into more mainstream music. Early banjos were fashioned and played by African Americans and were part of black music tradition in the United States. As a word it appears to come from the African akonting, a banjo-like instrument from Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea Bissau. The Mandinka name for the akonting is "bangoe".

The other instruments are not banjo-like. A marimba is related to the xylophone, the djembe is a type of drum and the algaita is a double reed woodwind similar to an oboe.

Red Crew's smpdit enjoys listening to a well-played banjo

Answer: samba

Samba is a Brazilian dance that traces back to what is believed to be Angolan-Congolese times, when Portugal was the ruling power of those areas. The word was "semba" meaning "belly bump" in the Angolan Kimbundu language. One source says "semba" means an "invitation to dance". The samba has the traditional hip gyrations of the Congo-Angolan circle dance movements called "umbigada", which was taken from the Portuguese word "umbigo" meaning "navel".

Carnival is a lively celebration held each year in Rio di Janeiro before Lent. The parades have floats represented by Samba schools. Each school has its own "personality" for its dance style.

PR's Red Crew member jaknginger contributed this question to the team quiz.

Answer: unsavory

A "juke-joint" was a roadhouse which often featured live music, and sometimes had an associated brothel, so calling it "unsavory" makes some sense. The word came to us from the Gullah dialect, spoken by descendants of enslaved people brought to the Lowcountry region of the US from western and central Africa. In Gullah, the word "juke" (also spelled "jook" and "jog") means "wicked, disorderly." The Wolof and Bambara word "dzug" is definitely a possible root word - the Wolof inhabit Senegal, Mauritania and the Gambia; the Bambara are a Mandinka people native to much of West Africa. Since enslaved captives were often brought from those regions, the link to the Gullah word "juke" is entirely plausible. Jukeboxes take their name from the juke joints through their mutual importance in sharing music.

Phoenix Rising's player pusdoc has been known to sing along with a jukebox.

Answer: marimba

The word "marimba" is thought to come from a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa. Bantu is a Niger-Congo language group with hundreds of dialects spoken in over 20 African countries. Breaking down the word, "ma-" means "many", and "-rimba" means"xylophone". It is sometimes seen as "malimba" in Swahili.

The marimba is a musical instrument thought to have originated in Africa. It uses mallets to strike wooden bars. The sound is amplified from resonators attached to the bars. Traditional marimbas used gourds as resonators. Modern marimbas sometimes use fiberglass for the bars and metal for the resonators. Although closely related, the xylophone has a different sound. The marimba has much warmer, softer tones.

Jaknginger loves to hear the marimba in the early version of "Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones.

Answer: impala

The impala (Aepyceros melampus) is a medium-sized member of the bovidae family and found in Southern and eastern Africa. It has a reddish-brown coat, tan flanks and white underbelly. The most recognisable features are its slender, lyre-shaped horns, which the males use for fighting.

The name Impala comes from the Tswana word "phala", meaning red antelope and was first called "palla" or "pallah" in English in 1802. The name was first recorded as "Impala" circa 1875. Zulu and Tswana are both native tongues in the regions where Impalas are endemic, and so the name 'Impala' is often accredited to both. In Afrikaans, "rooibok" translated as "red buck".

Phoenix Rising's leith90 likes the Impala, no matter where its name originated.