BUFFOONER BUFFOONER

BEING A LINGUIST, PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME, “David, what does ‘Bafana Bafana’ mean, and why is the South African team given such a name?” The short answer to this question, of course, used to be “I have no idea”, although I do now, after some research. However, on discovering that the meaning of the double use of the word ‘bafana’ makes it plural, i.e. ‘bafana’ means ‘boy” and ‘bafana bafana’ means ‘boys’, I am now intrigued by the possibilities opened up by this curious formation of plural nouns in whatever of the nineteen official languages of South Africa this expression happens to be.

CURIOUS ASPECTS OF LANGUAGES always interest me more than the languages themselves, which in themselves tend to interest me more than the people who speak them, unless the strangeness of the language indicates some quirk of the people that might be worth looking into. Indeed, fringe languages often show fringe mentalities.

SOMEHOW I HAVE IMAGINED THAT common words like Llanfairpwyllgwyngyll or Blaenauffestiniog give us an insight into the deranged minds of the Welsh people, as well as their confusing of the sounds ‘p’ and ‘q’, enabling them to turn the Latin quinque into pimp, while writing it as ‘pump’. It may equally be true that the last remaining use of the inflected infinitive and future subjunctive in Portuguese shows that they need to be doubly sure that they know who they are talking to, possibly because those to whom they are talking may not be listening.

I OFTEN WISH THAT CERTAIN ASPECTS of these strange tongues could be assimilated into our own, straightforward language. If this were possible, I would gladly use the repeated noun instead of the plural simply for effect. Political writings could be vastly improved by this technique, particularly in these days of the coalition government, which, in its attempts to “cut costs”, yet be “inclusive”, has managed to make record claims for ministerial expenses, possibly because we have two ministers where we used to have one. All of this shows that David Cameron’s idea of a “small government” is a load of ball ball.