Talk:Bamileke

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zuni girl; photograph by Edward S. Curtis, 1903 This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Ethnic groups, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritizing and managing its workload.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the Project's quality scale.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the Project's importance scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.
WikiProject Ethnic groups open tasks:

Bandjoun, Bafoussam and Bamendjou follow exactly the name in the French language in which they have a well established spelling. They are not transcriptions of the local language in which Bandjoun and Bafoussam people are "Jo" (or "Pe jo", where "Pe" means "people") and "Fusap". I don't see any reason for transcribing French. I may be wrong but I think that cameroonian anglophones rather use the first spelling (at least for Bandjoun and for Bafoussam) I see that Wikipedia itself use the "original" French spelling for the village of Bandjoun ("La' Jo" in ghomala').

By the way, the article made confusion between "bandjoun" and ghomala' speaking people. Baham for example share the same language, but don't tell them they are bandjoun! I corrected for this part but the mistake is still there for bafang, bangangte, dschang which are just the main sub-group or fe'fe'-, medumba- and yemba-speaking people but not the whole group. I'm not english native, so I let you correct. Togui 15:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the clarification, and please correct the others if you have the time. The general rule of thumb used with ethnic groups and villages in Cameroon is to prefer Anglopone spellings for peoples (such as Duala peoples) and French spellings for villages and towns in French-speaking areas (so, Douala). This is the method used in all of my English-language sources. That gives us the Banjun people but the village Bandjoun. — BrianSmithson 21:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, but "Duala" is not the anglophone spelling, but simply the standard spelling in Duala language and a good transciption of the local name, just like bulu or ewondo. Bandjoun people in ghomala' (the local language) are called "jo" (standard spelling, not sure if there are diacritics).
If you look at this cameroonian official website http://www.museumcam.org/en/bandjoun/pays.php, you'll see that they use "Bandjoun" spelling in English.
Togui 09:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I didn't mean the spelling used by Anglophone Cameroonians; I meant the spelling used by Anglophone writers in general. The phoneme /OU/ to make the long /U/ sound does not exist in English, nor does the /DJ/, which is represented simply by English /J/. However, I only have two sources that refers to them as Banjun: Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleages Vol 1 by V. G. Fanso and the various pages on Cameroonian languages (all of which originate from data at Ethnologue. The fact that the Bandjoun Museum uses the French spelling doesn't surprise me; the page is mostly concerned with the place Bandjoun (which should use French phonetics), and it was probably written by a Francophone. — BrianSmithson 11:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Flag of the Bamileke people"

Flag of Bamileke people
Flag of Bamileke people

I'd like a non-WWW source for the Bamileke flag that was added to the article today. Who uses this flag? What is its purpose? Is it nationalistic? Pending further verification, I've removed it for now. — BrianSmithson 18:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen that flag, nor have I ever heard of one. And I am a Bamilike. --Fotang 16:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the existance of this flag.. this is news to me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.92.59 (talk) 16:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed "history revisited"

I removed this:

There was a Bamileke kingdom before colonial era. The reunification of Bamileke was achieved in the nineteenth century by conquest after a war of coalition. During this war Bamileke generals innovated the technique of Trench Wars. King Nkalakeu Hapi II aka "Panther of Lakeu (leke)" was also the top general during this war. Bamileke maintained a cordial relation with Germans but king hapi II was arrested and exiled in Duala by the French. He remained at New Bell for nine month. during his absence Princess Mabu served as interim Queen while Hapi Henry, a nine year old prince sat on the thrown. This was organized by the Kamvu secret society in order to thwart foreign influences. Eventually king Hapi II returned home and in 1925 his son Hapi III aka Ptah'Fu of Bana became the new king. In 1954 he met French governor Socadeaux at the summit of Dschang. The war for independence continued. The Bamileke genocide engineered by French colonial authorities took the life of perhaps one million people. A French Pilot and witness recalled that 400,000 people died in only two years. He compared the genocide to Attila. The Bamileke genocide was an holocaust. People were burned to death with napalm. It lasted over ten years. During this period colonial administration divided the kingdom. Dukedoms and counties disappeared. They were replaced by chiefdoms.

No sources were cited. — Dulcem (talk) 23:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)