IF YOU WANT TO WRITE BANSO', YOU MUST WRITE MUNSO

-->

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE BANSO’, YOU MUST WRITE MUNSO’

Dr Viban Ngo’s Digest II, January 7, 2009 [Waylun, Mfilum]

Key Words: Place name, Nso, Ba, Language, map, subordination, restoration, Oslo Recommendation.

“In areas inhabited by significant numbers of persons belonging to a national minority and when there is sufficient demand, public authorities shall make provision for the display, also in minority languages, of local names, street names and other topographical indications intended for the public.” The Oslo Recommendation 1998, page 5.

The regionym Nso’ without adding or subtracting a syllabus is included in the above quotation. Banso’ (Bansaw, Banzso, PaNso’, Bansho, etc) are strictly speaking not Lamnso’ in which we fall under as a minority in this region of Western Africa. If I add an alien prefix or suffix to an Nso’ word, it is no longer Lam Nso’ unless our language experts have unanimously agreed so. This gives room then for coinage of words and phrases for the growth of a language. Should the French lexicographers be engaged in this exercise of getting rid of foreign words, prefixes and suffixes, it is obvious that the Nso’ lexicographers could do the same. The intention of the French for example is to avoid bastardization of the French language or its erosion by foreign languages. If the usage of the word or addition to it is a common consensus that is not imposed by a bunch of dictators, the new words could be incorporated into the mainstream of the language.

It is the prerogative of all Nso’ and friends of Nso people to support and promote Nso culture and one of the ways is through its correct Nso’ language usage. Many an Nso,’ Americans and Europeans have done this particularly in the field of evangelization through print. I will like to mention Rev. John Emonts, S.C.J. one of the pioneers of the RCM in Nso’ in the 1910s. He was the first to document our names and learn the language. I will be talking about him and his work in the future and all concerning the land of Nso and its environs.

The other week I strongly defended the fact that the Baptist Hospital at Nkavkeng that was purchased from the local native authority was not meant for a neighboring community. Prior to that, I had written a private letter to Miss Anne Ngong imploring her to consider dropping using the prefix BA when writing NSO’. I advanced that in Congo language, Bakongo, it simply means “men of.” That coincides with the Bali Mungaka syntax. One did not doubt this with the distribution of the BANTU, standing for men of NTU. The antonym for Ba is “Women of” and that is designated in Bakongo by MU. Therefore the opposite of BANTU is MUNTU. Consequently, I preceded that when you use BANSO’; you were leaving aside the women of Nso’. As a woman, I thought that I had stirred something in her that she was going to react. Her designation did not change but more jokes flowed from her pen. We appreciate those jokes but what I highlighted had been going on and on. As before, I will be catapulted to get the dracaena and beg for audience to speak on this in my capacity as a Shey and as one who is one of the eyes of the King of Nso’.

From the meaning of the prefix BA, if BANSO’ means “men of Nso’.” Where do we put the women of Nso’ Yaa woo Nso’ Goheen has charted their territory so well? The women of Nso’ will be written MUNSO’. Well, many of you have heard of MUMUM before. Therefore to agree on a term that best designates the land where the Nso’ people, both males and females occupy we have to write BANSO’-MUNSO’. If we have to write it this way, it will become a ten thousand francs word. Would it not? It will be expensive and jaw-breaking. That will make men and women happy as all will be represented by that double barrel name. Will they really be happy?

Then we are not asking those who like to call Nso in their languages to change for those are natural for them. Therefore, if a Bali calls Nsoland Banso’ he is right as the French who simply call it Pays Nso and the Germans Nsogebirt. They will only be wrong if they impose the way they call or write it in their languages on us as it will not be inherently our ways or a reflection of our language, Lam Nso’. We call our southern Mum village Kiyungdzen but the Mums know it as Nkurtubit. To them any place above Fumban begins with NKU and below PA. That is a different story. The Mum cannot come to dictate to us how we should call Kiyungndzen. Similarly, the Germans, French, English, Balis or Fulanis or whoever cannot come to tell us what we should call ourselves. That can only happen when we have learned their languages and are using them as we are doing now with English. However, the Germans came to impose their ways on us and it was painful and wrong. They came in by force or deception as the modern invaders. When did the German come in?

It was when Barah Ton Ntoh led by Hptm Hans Dominik and Hptm Kurt von Pavel came in 1902 and our perception of them changed because of their brute force. The presence of anything German was not accepted. They seized all our elephant tusks, strong men and women to dig roads and do other chores as slaves. We will return to this below. They shot children at Ngungba forest we had hidden them there with maxim guns like birds. How do you expect me to accept the names they brought when they had gone?

However, the German had done their intelligence and knew that the only way to get Nso’ was to subjugate them. That, they did with impunity under the leadership of a fierce and brutal bush warfare fighter, Hptm. Hans Glauning in 1906 with the support of the Balis, Mum, Hausa, Cro men recruited all the way from Liberia and Dualans. Nso’ yielded and paid heavily by surrendering young men and even women who were taken to work in plantations and factories in the Viktoria (German spelling) and Yaunde. Beautiful Nso’ girls were there for the pleasure of the German soldiers. Yaa woo Faa, then a spinster and later the wife of Ntah Faa, (the greatest fighter of Visalite group the Nso ever had) was among them and she had narrated her story. Those interested should approach Mr. Paul Mzeka who is good raconteur at Bamenda. Many of the Nso’ young men who went down south never returned. Many of them were killed by hard labor, malnutrition, and other diseases including malaria. Remember that by Nso’ being in the mountains means they were free from anopheles mosquitoes’ bites and never built immunities as southerners. Many still die when they go down south and forget their malaria tablets.

Nso’ now as a German territory got not by treaty but by war had to be mapped. The Nso’ were not asked what they called themselves as even the present (2009) arrogant occupiers. The Germans asked those who had sided with them in the subjugation of Nso’, the Bali carriers, Hausa and above all the Mum warriors who took the advantage to revenge their former defeat by the Nso’ (Interested persons should ask Prof. Dr. Fanso’ for details and or consult his publications). The name they gave was Banso’. As many of you have been saying, BANSO’ stands for men of Nso’. Nso’ as it stands mean people of Nso’. Again when you write BANSO’, you are simply repeating yourself by saying Men of Nso’, Men of Nso’ and that is traitorous and tautologous. It is like saying Kalahari Desert. Hari is Koikoi (Bushmen) term for “desert” and to say Kalahari Desert, you are simply saying Kala Desert Desert. So the good rendering is Kalahari, period. (For more on this see my forthcoming work on place names).

Also, I observed that only a handful of us have endeavored to read Women of the Grassfields by Dr. Philis Kaberry, Germans in the Cameroons by Harry Rudin and none of you have read my PhD thesis on Surveys that is well-known in Europe. It is lying at the University of Buea, or University of London, Senate House Library or LSE.

If the Germans defeated us and with their cohorts, their names the way they write names was imposed on us, and if they were eventually humiliated and chased out in 1915 by the Allied Forces, what tangible reason do you give for us still using their names when they had long gone? Let them be relegated in history texts and not exhumed and imposed on us by our own brothers and sisters. If we do it we are not the first. When the Germans were defeated in 1918 during the 1WW German place names in Australia, Canada, and USA and even in the Grand Cameroon were removed. Why do you think that Nso’ should be an exception particularly when in 1963 the West Cameroon Government passed out an ordinance calling for the local councils to remove those names? [See the West Cameroon Government Gazette Legal Notice of 1963 cited in this forum by Mr. Simon Tar].

Have any of you ever heard of a place called Johann Albrechtshöhe? It is the name Kumba was called some of you think clashes with Kumbo and Kumbo should be changed to Tobin. Are we going to ask Limbe in Malawi to be changed for it is the same as the Limbe in Victoria? What of Gambia and Zambia? What of dropping your personal name Ngong because in Kenya you have a mountain range called Ngong? What of Kaiser Wilhelmsburg? You are looking up and wondering if I am speaking Greek. It is not Greek. Well, Mobutu Seseko went back to the authentic African names and that may be the only legacy he left for the Congo Democratic Republic.

In the past the tendency for students who had gone to the south from Nso’ or even some 94 km West of Nso’ to Bamenda and mastered a smattering of pidgin was to call Nso’, Banso’. Why was this so? It was their way to make those who had been left behind feel that they were different and they were more civilized. Where they? Even those of us from CCAST and Sasse where good English-speaking and writing were emphasized did not believe that speaking of that bastardized language, pidgin was a sign of being haughty or having a special place in the society. On that note, I will like all of you intelligentsias to follow late Prof Dr. Bernard Fonlon and Sir Shufaay Woo Bastos Dr. Daniel Noni Lantum. These men were educated in the Western way, westernism but they would never mix their LamNso’ or fail to promote it wherever they were and in whatever discipline they were analyzing. You could not defeat them in any Nso’ mind, knowledge. They were and are still my teachers. I never ever heard them refer to Nso’ in foreign terms except for historical purposes or frowned on the usage of Nso’ because they wanted to be high-sounding as those of us who have modest education. They were humble and knew that you could not count yourself as being educated unless you had those Nso’ bases, the language and culture. It was not to insist on adopting foreign ways in which aliens for lack of knowledge of the Nso’ people were calling Nso’. They were there to educate, correct where errors were being made as I am doing and many of you have been striving to resist for spurious reasons.

Before you continue I would like you to read Dr. D. Lantum’s poem entitled “To Every Man a God” he wrote at Lagos in 1964 when some of us were not born. (See TALES OF NSO, 1964, page 181). I have been accused of lecturing in the past but I have to do it as I feel it is imperative that all sons of Nso’ and their friends know their folklore. In the absence of oral tradition, this book tells us all and must be read to the children before they retire each night if they do not yet read. I admired from this book “Chomtu the Ogress” by L.S. Fonka.

To Every Man A God

The man of Nso

Though of savage look

Was of noble soul

Closer to Nature

In action and in word.

The savage was their target goal

When from Roma, Basel, London shores

They came with Bible hands

To put in him their God’s own ways

And teach him to wear their foreign garb

But culture in him has always dwelt

With virtue, love and truth;

And in the humble way he lived

Those aliens called the “native way”

Resolved to change to their alien ways.

And when the savage shores they left

The man of Nso’ was an empty frame

Robbed of all his natural wealth

But dressed in a foreign garb

The aliens had killed the savage soul.

The Petrous God he lost to yore

The foreign God he missed to grab

The man of Nso’ his gods had lost

To strangers in his native land

For what? I ask. Civilization? What fool!

Dr. Dan N. Lantum,

Sunday May 10, 1964

Lagos.

On language learning that goes with place names, Welsh language is gone back into the classroom in Wales, UK and the Prince of Wales; Prince Charles has even learned it. In Wales, English place names are being replaced with Welsh names and what more of Nso’. The English were wrong to have tried to suppress Welsh and Gaelic names and they are coming back in force. The trend of suppression of the colonized had long gone. Will we allow that to be flying over Nso’?

Gauging from the voices of the people of Nso’ Northwest region of the State in West Africa, the general consensus is that Nso’ should be the name designating the region. The majority have said that it was wrong to have Banso’ in spite of the fact that park boys at Bamenda Motor Park scream at it when they want passengers. It is their way of saying that they understand Pidgin English. Must you the educated ones go low because those who don’t understand do so? I had in my last digest asked for Banso’ Baptist Hospital to be changed to BUI BAPTIST HOSPITAL. I had known that there was a storm coming in the horizon and I had wanted to divert it, but it came in a way we least expected. Our Sovereign who had been briefed on this subject matter way back in 2003 when I had an audience with him will nod his head in approval as he would not like to divert from the policies of his great father. I am not saying that our King takes side.

Additionally, it is not a matter of sounding good to the ear. If our syllogism were to follow that line, ‘shit’ would sound better to the ear than ‘food.’ Owing to the fact that many have grown up in EUROPHONE sounds they may even prefer their terms than ours in Lam Nso’ no matter if they put them so low. I never ever saw a French man while speaking in French prefers to say that he is French instead of Je suis Français because he thinks that English sounds better than French. I would rather suggest Ngonsonia the Latinized Ngonso that I have immortalized in my Shadows of Fire (2007).

The English gave the name Bechuanaland; the independent country gave Botswana as the English Onamastics have misreported or mistranslated the name. We should not sit on wrong things because they were put there by those who defeated and humiliated us or we do not want to infuriate those who impose them on us. The King of Nso’ Mbinglo Seem III saw this danger of Nso’ cultural erosion and passed on an ordinance by the town crier at Kumbo Market that prayers were to be said in two languages, Lamnso’ and English. That is how Bali that was fast usurping Lamnso’ was checked. We were not imposing Nso’ on the Balis and their presence was out of question. French and Arabic are sneaking in by the back door. How many times does Radio Bafoussam broadcast Lamnso? What of even English? Don’t you yearn for the good old days of Radio Buea? What of Radio Kumbo and a local television station? They will not be there for luxury or to instigate putsch as the tottering regime fears but strictly for educational purposes. If a government is straight it need not fear the dissemination of information, instead it should encourage it. If we can have a weekly paper why not a radio station to broadcast in Lamnso stationed on Yav Mount for good receptivity? That is a different topic. Have we ever considered exporting Lamnso to others?

The Germans in their 1/300,000 series map of German Kamerun, call Nkar as FOINKAR. No Nso’ person with his right memory will accept such a name. They wanted to record the name of the then Fon of Nkar but no one was crazy to give the name of the Fon to a “red” man (kimbang) who had humiliated the Nso’ in a battle. So the informant gave Fonnkar and the cartographer wrote Foinkar. Fantastic! Again, Banso’ was imposed because our people were defeated. Also they did it surreptitiously. Subsequently, Germans were defeated and chased out of the region they carved out in central Africa.

How many patriotic African countries still bear colonial names? Why have they done away with those names? Did you hear that the Indians changed the English Bombay to Mombai? It is because it was wrongly written when it was ruled by the British. Their changing it does not mean that they are anti-British. It is just correcting it as it should have been in the first place. Why should we keep German relics and glamorized our defeat? Are we whited-sepulchers or are we “crazy and afraid of dew” as our wise saying goes? Translate this proverb into Lamnso and you will laugh. The Ndongkitus, your Bames, those assimilated Nsonites and others could hang on to the BA. If everyone is making a mistake must you make it so as to be in uniformity with them?

The next set of imperialists came to Nso’, the English or call is the British. They were not bad people but anyone who forcibly occupies your land for whatever reason should leave as no one is superior to another. I do not want to politicize this splendid topic. The British had to do things as they did in Great Britain. They changed the German spellings. Nso’ became Nso’land to conform to England. Then they had difficulties pronouncing Nso’ and tried to marry it with the nearest English word, SAW. The name Nso’ entered their language as NSAW. The NSAW DISTRICT COUNCIL used this in their documents and Baa Simon Tar will confirm this. Also, the British colonial files in their archives and those of Buea that were missed around by some fellows from Yaoundé will confirm all these. As for Kumbo I have left that for those of you who will be reading my next work on African place names but I have dwell on it a bit below.

Nso Gazetteer must be corrected

When the British left, the French came in a way least expected in 1961. The UNO knew what the French man or one trained by the French was to do. They were warned not to try to change names in the Southern Cameroons that reverted to West Cameroon as from October 1, 1961. They did not listen as they considered their French superior to English. Were they right? The French cartographers came to produce the dictonnaire du Village, what the English call Gazetteer of Nso’. These field workers were so arrogant and did not care a damn to write Nso’ names properly. They wrote it as they heard in the French ear. Chin to the East of Nkar became Chine, Kimbo became Koumbou, etc…when I looked at it my head was spinning round as if I had been stripped bare from an Ngang colt and I asked why on earth they had not used the English documents of place names that the Directorate of Overseas Surveys had produced and were at Buea Archives and at Surbiton in London, now transferred to Southampton in the south of England. I once asked why an Nso’ interpreter was not used and got no reply. I was sad and it was not to end up in place names and people’s names. It was a step towards the Frenchification of the Anglophone (former citizens of the British Southern Cameroons). They contravened the UNO and stirred trouble as when they changed Victoria to Limbe. Names started changing and many of you have fallen victims to this. The Oslo Recommendation I have cited below is strongly against this type of killing of our tradition and names.

PERSONS belonging to national minorities have the right to use their personal names in their own language according to their own traditions and linguistic systems. These shall be given official recognition and be used by the public authorities.

Nso’ and English nitty-gritty

The English write Mr. Simon Tar and not Tar Simon as most of us with this French influence naively write it. If we are writing French we should do it as the French do. In the English language it should be written Mr. Vincent Lainjo and not Lainjo Vincent unless it was appearing in a special document, such could be possible if Lainjo is his given name. If you want to write only Lainjo you have to first start with his title, Mr. or Honorable Lainjo. Similarly, it should be Mr. Boniface T. Sakah. Do not write Mr. Boniface Tatah Sakah. It is bad-mannered to write someone’s middle name unless it is for a special purpose. Do not write President Barach Hussein Obama, but write President Barack H. Obama. The French write Mr. Fonka Shang Lawrence. That is not the English way of writing. It should be Mr. Lawrence Shang or Mr. Charles Gordon. Also, after a letter in the forum your name has to be written in full with your title where applicable, eg. Sheey Gham Nso’ng, Yaa Kilan Ngwang, Mallam Abdul Mbinglo, Rev. Pius Awa, Pastor Fai, Fr. Syxtus Nyuyseh, Sr. Ancella Dibula, Dr. Viban Ngo, Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Tanjo and so on. I am aware of the fact that many of you want to be anonymous. If you are a lord identify yourself with your lordship and the estate where you officiate. However, when you are writing in French do it as the French would do. Do not mix it up with the way it is done in French and think that you are writing English. It will be correct grammatically but it will be wrong to the English as it is not the convention. However, in Nso’ we can write Wan Tangwa, Wan Kenjo without necessarily putting Mr. Dr. Sr, Mallam etc prefix. In Kikuyu, East Africa is it Wa. So we have the famous writer known as Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

Killing Lam Nso’ Softly but Surely

Now when you do not use authentic Nso’ or Lamnso’ appellations, you are killing that language gradually. There are approximately 800,000 Nsonites, Nso’ country proper approximately a million plus including those settled elsewhere in the world. If all of them drop Nso’ names be it in the Diaspora or in the two countries in which they span, they are killing 800,000 Nso’ words and phrases. Every moment that people call those Nso’ names, they teach them without necessarily enforcing them to other non-Nso’ speakers. The name is Chinua Achebe of the Nigeria famous novelist. A curious person who wants to learn Ndigbo (Ibo) will want to find out the meaning of their names as that of our poet Prof. Bongaashu and our philosopher Prof. Banyuy.

Concern of the United Nations in the dying languages and place names

Why have I been so concerned with the preservation of pristine Nso’ place names and names? Well, it is the concern of the United Nations Organization branch the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that if we do not have them right, and if nothing is done all the minority languages and cultures in the world would be marginalized or pushed completely away. Many have died and we do not want to kill genuine Nso’ names by replacing them with foreign ones. Those of you who insist on writing in Lamnso’ and translating it are telling us that you are unable to read and write Lamnso’. A solution for this is to kowtow to Microsoft, Yahoo or Google for our language to be included in their dictionary as other main languages.

That topic was discussed and shelved. It is a sign that LamNso’ is dying among us gradually. Who are the ones killing it? We are the ones killing it. When an Nso’nite marries a Duala (this is correct English spelling… do not try to change it to that of French as I am writing English and not French), the chances of Nso’ being used in that household are almost zero. Mind you I am not saying that you should not marry vitum. According to Seem Mbinglo III, Nso’ is a conglomerate and its big population is owed to foreigners. That is why its doors are ever open for foreigners to come in as compact as Nso’ is. I am not saying that we should not learn other languages. Do so but ensure that you teach that God-given language Lamnso’ and employ the correct usage of Nso’ place names. If no efforts are made in the third generation, the language dies and they are speaking French a more simple alien language than English.

Nso’ Persons without Nso’ Mind

Those of you living at Bonaberi (Hickory) town might have come across some Duala elements with Nso’ names and they do not speak a word of Lamnso’. You may try to guess how they come about those names. They were among those who were brought there by the Germans after the subjugation of Nso’ in 1906 to work in the construction of the Nordbahn, the northern rail way whose original plan was to reach Fumban and a branch via Mbo Nso’ to Kumbo area. The German disappeared and the plan was shelved indefinitely by the next occupiers of that region that now Nso’ Kingdom is a part of.

UNESCO mentioned above know that there are ever people who would like to try to prove that their language or culture is better than that of other people. The colonialists everywhere in the world employ that tactic of superiority. Is there any superior language to Lam Nso’? They are all the same as scientifically all human beings are the same be they of any color or the three prototypes of man on earth? Now for those of you who are insisting that they do not see anything wrong in the use of BANSO’, do you know that it is a way of accepting that Bali Mugaka is better than Nso’? Is it? For those of you who want to accept the French way and even try not to speak Nso’ as you feel it is an inferior language…you are even trying to abuse God who gave you that language. Was He wrong? When French, German, Nso’, Bali, Duala, Kweri, Wimbuum, Arabic are weighed on the same scale none is heavier than the other. Did you know this? These languages transmit the same message. Once more, they are all the same. When it was the time of Roman imperialism they bullied the French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese, those of us from Northern Africa to actually believe that their languages were pidgin or vernaculars. What became of Latin the then a respected “superior” language? It died with most Roman place names. Why?

If you feel that English is better, it is because it users were megalomaniac and went on conquering others and imposing their culture at the expense of the vanquished. That attitude of Europeans helped in the killing of several thousands of languages worldwide and many more and Nso’ can die if we of the present generation give room to those who audaciously claim that they saw nothing wrong in calling Nso’, BANSO’. If a foreigner comes to call you a STONE and you know that you are not known as STONE, Tiiy would you accept it? Only a moron will do so. If you call an Ndigbo (Ibo) Kwaartokov, a term for a terrorist based on the way they treated Southern Cameroonians traders who ventured in their territory in the days of darkness, do you think they would accept it? Do we still call the Bames, Ndungkitu…actually dungkitu standing for brainy? Our fathers did that when they cheated Nso’ traders each time they left Panjea (Fernando Po) and were coming to retail goods bought on that Island or at Duala.

Back To Unesco

UNESCO issued a statement as far back as in 1978 (see The General History of Africa Studies and Documents 6, 1978) that a people’s language and place names should be respected and not suppressed as was the case in the colonial days. As recently as February 1998 this was re-emphasized by The Oslo Recommendations Regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities. According to this Oslo Recommendation, 1998, page 5 the Nso’ belong to the National Minorities in that conglomerate that is dominated by the French culture who often look down upon you. I will write all down for those who cannot get hold of the document from any of the UN agencies. They have also supported minorities’ religions or beliefs but we shall leave that for another chapter and concentrate today on place names and personal names:

PERSONS belonging to national minorities have the right to use their personal names in their own language according to their own traditions and linguistic systems. These shall be given official recognition and be used by the public authorities.

This is why if you call yourself Lukong Kaavi, Banyuygav, Tukov, Chin Barah, Wiibam Lambiv, Laynteng Kiwo, etc. no one should Europeanize it or attempt to deny you any rights or force you to change it. How many of them get our names even those who claim they love us?

Further more “In areas inhabited by significant numbers of persons belonging to a national minority and when there is sufficient demand, public authorities shall make provision for the display, also in minority languages, of local names, street names and other topographical indications intended for the public.”

The above clause covers our use of Nso’ as designation of Nsoland or the Kingdom of Nso’. That is how we like to be known and anyone suggesting anything contrary to this that is not authorized by us or arrived at by a common consensus is nothing but a blatant suppression of our rights UNESCO and Oslo Recommendation are against.

Finally we can kill Lamnso or we can transplant it and water it daily. The onus is ours. No strangers will do it for us.

Dr. Viban Ngo, Shey.

Dr. Viban NGO, © copyright, January 8, 2009. If you want more stuff on Nso’ wait for my next work on the introduction to African place names.