Documenting the Bafut (Grassfields Bantu, Cameroon) Royal Honorific System
| Language | Bafut (ISO639-3:bfd) |
| Depositor | Ayu’nwi Ngwabe Neba |
| Affiliation | University of Buea |
| Location | Cameroon |
| Collection ID | 0271 |
| Grant ID | SG0159 |
| Funding Body | ELDP |
| Collection Status | Collection online |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/b7c0169d-a462-4fae-8a4f-2470b5ab586b |
Summary of the collection
The collection includes recordings of songs, their performance and other activities in which royal honorifics are used in both speech and gesture. Recordings include different versions of the Bafut National Anthem (Mban), now sung and performed by a very limited few.
Group represented
Bafut speakers, members of the various traditional administrative structures.
Bafut, a Grassfields Bantu language, North West Cameroon has more than 80.000 speakers. It has a descriptive grammar, many PhD and Masters theses on its phonology, tone, morphology, syntax and semantics. It also has a functional orthography. Bafut society is basically agrarian and bifurcated into royalty and commoners. The traditional ruler-Fon lives in the palace with his wives, princes/princesses and secret societies and comprise royalty. The rest of the villagers comprise commoners.
Language information
The Bafut Royal Honorific System is one of several registers used by Bafut speakers when addressing members of the various traditional administrative structures. The various honorific systems differ depending on who is the speaker, whom the speakers talk about and the purpose of speech. The Royal honorific language is used on the Fon, among the princes or princesses in traditional rites and sacrifices and relic songs. The Bafut Royal honorific system has the same grammar as the system, but different vocabulary. The vocabulary for Fon is often metaphorical and provides an insight into what is culturally taboo (e.g. the Fon dying, eating, being ill) and how this is expressed. For example, a Fon is ‘missing’ (dead), has ‘fireflies’ (eyes) and ‘rattles’ (feet) and can ‘swim’ (walk).
The honorific system is a package of verbal language and gestures (soft and low pitch, stooping and hand clapping, etc) an embodiment of social values and a form of social deixis that enriches linguistic structure with social function, thus providing us with an insight into the worldview of the Bafut community.
Bafut itself is not endangered, but many of its traditional religious rituals and practices like the royal honorifics, are. No particular effort is being made to acquire the system. Less than 20% of the younger generation knows about the system. Fewer and fewer traditional rites where royal honorifics are used are being performed and the number of annual ancestral sacrifices is decreasing. It is important to document this rich reservoir of the Bafut culture and tradition. Both primary and co-investigators speak Common Bafut very well and are members of the community. The co-investigator has been inducted and authorised to interact with the Fon directly. This facilitates interaction with the palace and community. We have both done some exploratory research on the royal honorific system in the palace which we now want to extend. Apart from our initial exploratory research, no major work exists on the royal honorific system.
Collection contents
Recordings include different versions of the Bafut National Anthem (Mban), a praise song for the Fon, the elderly Queen, which is rich in honorifics and contains only a few words of Modern Bafut. It is now sung and performed by a very limited few.
Acknowledgement and citation
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Neba, Ayu’nwi Ngwabe. 2013. Documenting the Bafut (Grassfields Bantu, Cameroon) Royal Honorific System. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-0002-6249-F. Accessed on [insert date here].
