The Portuguese Language on the Gold Coast, 1471-1807: Addenda

Abstract

comer 2 Port. ‘eat’; Ga k ‘kenkey’. This may seem surprising, since this food is quintessentially Ga, but note that the Ga word occurs in no other language. The older Ga-Dangme term for this food seems to be otimi. The word was presumably adapted from the Portuguese verb in the context ‘something to eat’. escamotear Port. ‘filch, steal, get by tricks’; Gold Coast (and other) English k m t ‘get, remove, extract, by force or by stealth’, eg. the wind k m t my zingli ‘the wind tore off my roofing sheets’. English ‘come out’ is commonly assumed to be the source, but the Portuguese verb seems a better semantic and discursive fit. At one time a version of the word seems to have been current in at least some varieties of British English, for in the mid 19 th century Thackeray has an English lady, supposedly of a cosmopolitan 18 th century background, write, “...my niece Maria Esmond hath escamote a promise [of marriage] from Harry.” (Thackeray 1859, Chapter XLI; underline mine.) mercador Port. ‘merchant’. This word was cited in the article, but only European documentary sources were mentioned. It is the most likely source of Twi ma nkra do , Ga ma ŋkra lo , the title of a town official. saber Port. ‘know’. It was noted in the earlier paper that this word is still used in coast English as sabi, ‘know’. It also occurs as the base of two Ga nouns, sa be ‘inquisitiveness’ and sa be l ‘inquisitive person’ (Dakubu 2009).