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Quelques Devinettes des Enfants Noirs de Léopoldville

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

S. Comhaire-Sylvain
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Extract

Si l'eau et le feu ont particulièrement frappé l'imagination des petits Noirs qui se répètent régulièrement plusieurs devinettes qui s'y rapportent, les autres phénomènes ne les ont pas laissés indifférents comme nous verrons par la suite. Voyons d'abord l'eau:

Bakolamba eloko wana mpo na kotambwisa yango — Mai. On cuit cette chose-là pour la faire marcher — L'eau.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1949 , pp. 40 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1949

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References

page 40 note 1 Madame Comhaire, in a letter to the editor, explains that the language of these riddles is Lingala. ‘It is slightly different from the Lingala recorded in Dr. Guthtie's grammar which is the best as regards the spoken language of Léopoldville. It is also different, as I have pointed out in the article, from the Lingala taught in the Catholic schools and in the Army, often called “written Lingala” or “literary Lingala”, which varies widely from the former. This Lingala not only has rigid concords but sometimes uses even infixes.’ The language of the riddles, which were dictated to Madame Comhaire or in many cases written for her by the children themselves, is ‘a compromise between the language of the school and the language of the street’. Most of the riddles, if not all, are traditional.—Editor.