Gbaya Word of the Day #1

(This is Adam)

Each language has its points were it is alive and other parts were it is mundane.

Gbaya is very rich language as it has many interesting words that English has nothing on.  This is why we are going to try to start an ongoing series of posts on a cool Gbaya word of the Day.

 

Today’s word is dugbulu-dugbulu (pronounce the “u”s like the two “o”s in the word ‘boot’)

 

This word, while also very fun to pronounce has an even more interesting meaning.

The sole meaning of this word is “the movement of fat from side-to-side of the belly or rear-end of a person while walking”

What a great specific meaning.  I mean, we’ve all seen that haven’t we?  But Gbaya has a word to represent that reality…cool, huh?

Sometimes used as an adjective, sometimes an adverb, or sometimes just saying that someone is fat.

 

An example sentence is “Woo! Zok gasa bhoko engi! Wene dugbulu-dugbulu!”

Translation : “Hey, look at that big woman over there, she’s dugbulu-dugbulu (real fat)!” 

Cultural note: women being on the little more hefty side is an attractive thing here in Central Africa.  This person is probably commenting on how good looking she is.

 

Discovered this word from when we were translating in 1 Samuel 2:29 where Eli and his two sons literally in the Hebrew “fattened themselves” on the stolen sacrificial meat that should have been offered up on the altar.  The Gbaya translator Anatole suggested that and is currently mulling over whether or not this word will work with translating the concept “of fattening oneself”.  He hasn’t decided yet.

 

Will this word be in the Gbaya Bible someday?  Only time will tell…