Hi folks, Habib's posting below, reminds me of an exchange I had last year with Daniel Janke of Scratch Records about the spelling Yan Kuba. I wrote to say that we spelt the name as "Yankuba" in The Gambia, and not "Yan Kuba" as indicated. The reason I took the trouble to point this out was not that I wanted to play difficult, or follow the line of former President Senghore of Senegal, who got himself into a bitter argument years ago with the late Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop about how to spell Siggi (with one "g" or two "g"s). By the way, as I recall the issue died a natural death when Prof. Diop decided to name his paper "Taxaw" instead. Senghore, as a self-appointed guardian of the syntax and grammer of the Wollof language (he must have been confusing it with French) was one that made a big deal of these things. At any rate, as I was saying, the reason I pointed out the the problem I had with the spelling of Mr. Saho's name is that I have seen the many times when people have been sloppy with spelling our Gambian names, and in the process make it very difficult, if not impossible to follow any threads that relate different events, people, or places. But then again, we have somehow managed to come to terms with variations in the spelling of our names from country to country, depending on our colonial history. Witness "Toure" a la Francophonie, vs. "Touray" (in The Gambia), and "Turay" (in Sierra Leone). Oh well ... Anyway, congratulations to "Koto" Yankuba (I mean, YAN KUBA!) on the release of his CD. Katim ----- Original Message ----- From: USA Halal Chamber of Commerce <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 12:05 AM Subject: from emusic.com > Yan Kuba Saho > > Yan Kuba Saho was born in the mid-1940s in > Dankunku in the district of Nyamina, > Gambia, West Africa. At the age of ten he was > sent to learn kora and to read the > Koran with Faal Suso, in Salinkenni. After ten > years of studies, Mr. Saho left Faal > Suso's compound and traveled throughout Gambia > and Senegal performing for > friends and gaining patrons in the traditional > way of the Mandinka griot (praise > singer). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Yan Kuba ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------