Re: banbhoj

JACQUES HUYNEN wrote:


Hello to everyone,

I live in South Western Nepal 3 month a year. The natives here speak 2 dialects of Hindi (Avadhi, tongue linked with Lucknow across the border, and Bhojpuri which is also spoken in Indian Bihar). At the beginning of the year when weather is warming up (February) young people gather for what they call "ban (wood) + bhoj (food) > banbhoj, litterally "food in the woods", that is "picnic". That word reminds me of a French word that has a meaning close to banbhoj : "bambocher", to banquet, party, enjoy oneself. I wonder if there could be a common origin to these two words. French etymological dictionaries I could put my hand on indicate as etymon italian "bambo" (baby) ...


Anyone has a clue ?






ISHINAN: I suspect the culprit for the transmission of your term 'banbhoj' is the Diaspora desis (1) in Haiti. This Diaspora is already responsible for a fusion culture in which foods, fashions, music, and the like from many areas of South Asia (East Indian) are 'fused' both with each other and with elements from Francophone culture in Haiti (One of Haiti's two official languages is French.)


ETYMOLOGY:
Definition of BAMBOCHE
: AmerF (Haiti), fr a social get-together in Haiti characterized by noisy singing and dancing.

It is often confused with Italian 'bamboccio' (2)


BTW. A growing demand for popular programming for South Asians caused mtv to launch their own television channel for Desis called mtv desi.

(1) Currently South Asian is often used instead of East Indian. People of Indian origin sometimes use the term Desi to refer to the diasporic subculture of South Asians, particularly Indians.

Origin of the Desi term:
Nepali uses des(h)i or the related mades(h) i (?????, ?????) to refer to people from the Terai (Madhesh) who are linguistically and culturally like people in adjacent India, as well as for people from India proper


(2) L'ital. bamboccio est dér. de bambo subst. « enfant » et adj. « stupide, niais » (suff. diminutif et péj. -occio), lui-même dér. de la racine onomatopéique bamb- exprimant ce qui est « sot, niais, puéril ».

ÉTYMOL. ET HIST. - [Contrairement à ce qu'affirment Dauzat68 et Bl.-W.5, le mot ne figure pas dans Michel 1807]; 1808 (D'Hautel, Dict. du bas-lang., Paris). En l'absence d'une chronol. rigoureuse, on peut formuler plusieurs hyp. 1) dénominatif de bamboche2, dés. -er; 2) tiré de bambochade*, p. anal. de couples comme bousculade/bousculer, rigolade/ rigoler, galéjade/galéjer, embrassade/embrasser

I hope this helps

All the best


Ishinan

Jan. 17, 2012

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