Djembe vs. English, or: Wikipedia 1, OED 0

[Riley John G.]

I was talking to a friend online last night when I discovered that my spell check would not accept any spelling I could think of for the African drum, the djembe.

A bit peeved and suspecting inadequacy, I checked my Webster's Dictionary for the spelling; still no luck. I went online, in case my dictionary was too old, to http://www.webster.com; nothing.

Desparate, I went to the granddaddy of all dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary. Djembe? No. Jembe? No. Jenbe? No. Yembe? No. Sanbanyi? Dream on.

I did end up finding the word, and all the variants listed above, at Wikipedia. How could the OED and Webster not have this word, but Wikipedia has four? I understand the word is a bit esoteric for the layman, but so is "disjecta membra."

Linguists. I feel like writing a letter.

(Relatied trivia: "Malibu board" is also in Webster's, but "Malibu" isn't. "Doh" is also in the OED, and even mentions Homer Simpson.)

[Ribbs]

You've come to the right place to vent your spleen, Riley-san. It is interesting that academia in general is quick to recognize any word that has a dead white language as a root, yet often ignores those of the dark continent. For what it is worth, many percussion instruments have names that are onomatopoeic in nature - the two syllables in "djembe" (jem-bay) are descriptive of two of the sounds the drum produces. Dumbek, surdo, ashaka, gome, and odunu are a few other examples.

When I was in Australia I was amused to learn that Malibu, frequently shortened to Mal, is a noun for a longboard (surfboard).

[scottandtara]

Well how about THAT! You learn something new every day!

Ribbs said:

You've come to the right place to vent your spleen, Riley-san. It is interesting that academia in general is quick to recognize any word that has a dead white language as a root, yet often ignores those of the dark continent. For what it is worth, many percussion instruments have names that are onomatopoeic in nature - the two syllables in "djembe" (jem-bay) are descriptive of two of the sounds the drum produces. Dumbek, surdo, ashaka, gome, and odunu are a few other examples.

When I was in Australia I was amused to learn that Malibu, frequently shortened to Mal, is a noun for a longboard (surfboard).

[Riley John G.]

Ribbs said:

When I was in Australia I was amused to learn that Malibu, frequently shortened to Mal, is a noun for a longboard (surfboard).

I did some research on the internet, trying to figure out whence the word "Malibu" originated. Best I can gather, it comes from the Chumash "Humaliwo," their name for the area meaning "the surf sounds loudly." OED says about the etymology of "malibu" ("Malibu board") that it comes from "the name of Malibu Beach in California (prob. a Chumash name; first recorded in a land grant of 1805)." So maybe we're not in the dictionary as an entry, but we made the footnotes!

[miguel]

djembe, jem bay, you say surdo i say conga, lets call the whole thing off.

all this talk of the white and dark continent is interesting, but there are indeed more "fun" points of debate and such. like.....

have i told you latle hao much i hate those thingytoos?