CENTRAL AFRICAN GONG-LANGUAGES

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5 2 A C O M P A R A T IV E S T U D YThus, for Kele, the name for firewood is :tokolokolo twâtoâla ....................... tokolokolo being the name forsmall sticks, whiletoâla is the usual word for piecesof firewood.Similarly, the name for plantain is :likondo libotümbela ........................likondo being the usual word forplantain, whilelibotümbela means « to be proppedup »;li- is a concord joining the twoelements of the gong-name.Many examples of this structure can he seen in thecollecter! gong-language texts. To quote a few fromlanguages other than Kele :Mbole :Meat ........ otéko ónama ......... little joints of meat.Bird ........ tofulü âtonoli ........ two words for « little birdsShield ..... likoke lyéotukola .... shield of « botukola » wood.T opoke:Oil ........... bainâ gabolâqgi .... oil from the bottle.W ife ........ bogâli yambéie ..... w ife of the house.Essentiallv similar are some phrases recorded for otherlanguages :Nkundo:isekaseka y'ôliato ...........................woman.yoks lotokélâ .................................. manioc (both recorded by Hulstaert,41).Tum ba :Meat ........ lotéko lónyama ..... (after Clarke, 15).Neither the form AæB nor the duplicated form men-tioned under o) above seem to occur in the other oralliterature of the peoples using the gong-languages. Inproverbs and fables, terseness of expression rather thanextension and duplication are charaeteristic,. Theextended form which is charaeteristic of the gong-
O F SOME C E N T R A L A F R IC A N G O N G -LA N G U A G E S 53language phrases is clearly of value because the additionof extra syllables to these phrases increases the characterisationof them by tone and rhythm loane. It must benoted however, that while poetical and even musicalfactors may have entered into the construction of thesestereotyped gong-phrases (*), yet the beats on the transmittinginstrument always follow exactly the tonal structureof the component words. W e have never found anyindication in the gong-language phrases of the Yakusuarea that the tonal patterns of the phrases becomemodified for rhythmic purposes as has been suggested forLuba Samba by V a n A v e r m a e t (see p. 60).e) A few gong-phrases, which are neither of theduplicated form nor of the form AxB are short wordpicturesof the objects they represent and are essentiallylike the Yaunde phrases which H e e p e described as « bildlicli» (38; cf. p. 11 of this study). Such are :Kele :House : the house with shingles high up above.Money : the pieces of metal which arrange palavers.Manioc : the manioc remains in the fallow garden.Moon : the moon looks down at the earth.Olombo :Sd :European : white man, evil spirit like rain.Goat : the animal which walks with a cloud on its face (referringto its beard).Mbole (Yalikoka) :Sun : the sun which remains in the village square (even when allthe villagers have left for the forest).Dog : young man who runs about in the ashes. of the fire.(*) Cf. Hulstaert, 42, p. 18 : « II est naturel qu’on choisisse de préférenceune phrase qui se prête le mieux à être rendue... qui possèdeune tonalité et un rythme nets et caractéristiques.
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CENTRAL AFRICAN GONG-LANGUAGES

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