Journey of Song: Public Life and Morality in Cameroon

Note on Orthography and Song Notation

NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY AND SONG NOTATION I have used the orthography provided in Suzanne Ruelland’s Dictionnaire TupuriFranc ̧is-Anglais with minor alterations. Consonants: b, , c [English “ch”], d, , f, g, h, j, k, l, m, mb, n, nd, ny, ŋ, ŋg, p, r, s, t, w, y, and '. Vowels: a, ã, e, ε, ẽ, i, ı̃, o, ɔ, õ, u, and ũ Ruelland notes four tones in Tupuri: high, mid-high, mid-low, and low. For ease in reading, I will not note tone, though I have noted where a word’s meaning is ambiguous without it. For the names of people, places, and associations in Tupuri, I retain the conventional French-language phonetics. For example, Club Kwoı̈ssa is the proper noun for the Yaounde-based dance troupe; however, the dance for which it was named is denoted as “kuwaysa.” For notation of gurna song, I use the attribution of the village of the senior composer, followed by the seasonal year of the song and the verse number. For example, (Z., 97/98, v. 22) designates verse 22 of the gurna song from Zouaye, composed by Doumnano and Djingue for the gurna season October 1997 to June 1998. I have designated songs by village of composition because this is conventional in Tupuriland (e.g., “siŋ Tuksu” refers to the song from Tuksu village). Also, composition was collaborative, so a single composer name would not suffice . All locations are in Cameroon, unless otherwise designated: Tuksu (T.), Dawa, Chad (D.), Zouaye (Z.), Lycée de Doukoula (L.), Konkoron (K.),Yaoundé (Y.), and Maroua (M.). Composer names for each location are noted in the bibliography . For waywa and lεεlε song (denoted as “w” and “l,” respectively), the numerical designation (for example, w, 12) refers to the sequence in my collected song corpus. Composition dates, authorship, and provenance for these genres are difficult to pinpoint because composers prefer to remain anonymous, especially for the waywa. ...