The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #99389 Message #2238091
Posted By: Azizi
16-Jan-08 - 08:05 PM
Thread Name: African Folk Songs
Subject: RE: African Folk Songs
Somewhat off-topic but with regard to the word "alafia" that is found in the song "Funga Alafia":
At one time, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, there was an African clothing/artifact shop in Pittsburgh called "Alafia" which was owned and managed by a Nigeria woman named Bisi. Bisi told me that the word "Alafia" was a greeting word from the Yoruba [YOUR-roo-bah] language of Nigeria.
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I've read that "alafia" means "peace".
With regard to the word "peace" as a greeting word:
In the late 1970s or thereabouts, a number of African Americans who were converted Muslims began using the traditional Arabic greeting phrase "a salaam alaikum" {sp?}. This phrase translates to "Peace be unto you" {or some such meaning}.
Non-Muslim folks {such as myself} heard this phrase and began using it when speaking to Muslims they met and [sometimes] when greeting folks who weren't Muslim but were afro-centric [interested in African culture]. If I recall correctly, we said "as salaam alaikum" when we were greeting folks and when we were leaving those folks. Eventually, the entire Arabic phrase was shortened to "salaam" {"peace"}. I believe that this was used only as a departing phrase. By at least the late 1980s, among Pittsburgh African Americans, it was rare to hear anyone but a Muslim person saying the entire "as salaam alaikum" greeting/departing phrase.
Somewhere around the 1980s or 1990s, some people were using the departing phrase "Peace And Love". In some afrocentric but also Christian religious circles, "peace and love" was used as a call & response phrase. If someone was leaving and he or she said "Peace", then you were expected to say "And love". [I don't know how widespread this practice was. Maybe it was just a done just among some portions of the African American population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But I believe it probably was more widespread than that.
"Peace out", a hipper form of that departing phrase also became popular somewhere around the 1980s and 1990s. I think this phrase was more readily adopted by some African Americans and some non-African Americans. But I think few people say "Peace out" anymore.
However, the word "Peace" still appears to be used quite often as a departing phrase among African Americans and non-African Americans.