Also, Q, in your 11 Aug 07 - 07:44 PM post you wrote that "Some of the names in the songs come from Turkish languages, much better known in Europe than 'Arabic' or African before the 19th c., and from languages of the Indian subcontinent picked up during the Raj".

See this excerpt from a Wikepedia article about the Turkish language:

Following the adoption of Islam c. 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks, regarded as the cultural ancestors of the Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a rather large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, in particular Ottoman Divan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of borrowings. During the course of over six hundred years of the Ottoman Empire (c. 1299–1922), the literary and official language of the empire was a mixture of Turkish, Persian and Arabic, which differed considerably from everyday spoken Turkish of the time, and is termed Ottoman Turkish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language

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Furthermore, Q, in that same 11 Aug 07 - 07:44 PM post you wrote
Cuff-Cuffin-Cuffee is an old slang word for man, in print from the 16th century in English but probably older; origin unknown. My grandfather called himself an old cuff, and I am one now. Thus from which source the minstrel name is taken is uncertain.

I'm sure that you are aware that words that are spelled and/or pronounced the same often have different etymologies. With regards to the name "Cuffy" being derived from Akan {Ghanaian} day names, see this quote from "Slaves, Free Men, Citizens-West Indian Perspective", edited by Lambros Comitas and David Lowenthal {Anchor Press, p. 37; 1973} [This includes a reformatting list because I don't know how to do columns in this message box] :

"Long gives the day-names, commonly used among the slaves as follows:
Male:
Cudjue {Monday}
Cubbenah {Tuesday}
Quaco {Wednesday}
Quao {Thursday}
Cuffee {Friday}
Quamin {Saturday}
Quashee {Sunday}

Female:
Juba {Monday}
Beneba {Tuesday}
Cuba {Wednesday}
Abba {Thurdsday}
Phibba {Friday}
Mimba {Saturday}
Quasheba {Sunday}

-snip-

Editors Comitas & Lowenthal provie this citation for Long: "Edward Long "The History of of Jamaica" {3 volumes, London; T. Lowndes; 1774; Vol 2, p. 410)

The editors write that "Long went to Jamaica in 1757 at the age of 13 and published his history in 1774".