Subject: K(c)ongo<br/>
Date: Oct 19, 2001 @ 23:47<br/>
Author: Grant Hutchison (&quot;Grant Hutchison&quot; &lt;granthutchison@...&gt;)<br/>
<a href="4160.htm">Prev</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Post in Topic&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="4170.htm">Next</a>&emsp;[<a href="topic4126.htm">All</a> Posts]<br/>
<a href="4163.htm">Prev</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Post in Time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="4165.htm">Next</a><br/>
<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-304216352">Peter:<br/>
<blockquote><span title="ireply"> &gt; The word Congo comes from the people of that name. And they write <br/>
&gt; it with a K.<br/>
 </span></blockquote>Interesting. But I bet they acquired the alphabetic representation of <br/>
their spoken language from some Flemish-speaking Belgian missionary!<br/>
<br/>
On a related point, does anyone know the truth or otherwise of the <br/>
following origin-story for the country name Kiribati <br/>
(pronounced &quot;Kiribas&quot;)? <br/>
It seems that &quot;Kiribas&quot; is the local pronunciation of the old <br/>
British &quot;Gilberts&quot; archipelago. (Try it; it works - Pacific languages <br/>
are notoriously short on consonants and keen on vowels.)<br/>
But the British missionary who first wrote down the local language <br/>
had a typewriter with a broken &quot;S&quot; key. So he substituted the <br/>
digraph &quot;TI&quot; for &quot;S&quot;, allegedly because of its sibilant sound in <br/>
words like &quot;naTIon&quot; and &quot;poTIon&quot;.<br/>
This seems a bit implausible to me, unless the terminal sound <br/>
in &quot;Kiribati&quot; is nearer &quot;sh&quot; than &quot;s&quot;.<br/>
<br/>
Grant</div>