Greetings!

I just read the latest post from an Akan man about Ghanaian folk music. That post is ironical because I came here to add information about an Akan children's game song [traditionally, a stone passing game song] which-judging from the number of YouTube choral performances of the song-is relatively familiar in the United States and some other (non-African) nations. That song is "Sansa Kroma" (also known as "Sansa Akroma").

I published two post on my pancocojams cultural blog on "Sansa Akroma", the first on lyrics, meanings, and traditional performance activities, and the second featuring five selected videos of that song, and one video of a stone passing game song from Jamaica ("Emmanuel Road") The links to those post are http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/03/lyrics-meanings-of-ghanaian-song-sansa.html for Part I of this series and http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/03/videos-of-ghanaian-song-sansa-kroma.html for Part II of this series.

Here are the words to this song from Let Your Voice Be Heard! Songs from Ghana and Zimbabwe by Kobena Adzenyah, Dumisani Maraire and Judith Cook Tucker (World Music Press, 1967):

Sansa kroma
Ne na woo aw
Che che kokoma
-snip-
According to those authors, the correct pronunciation for those words are:
"sah-sah kroh-mah nee nay woo aw-chay chay koh-koh mah"

[There are at least two other ways that the word or sound "woo" is given in examples of "Sansa Kroma": "wuo" and "yo". The word or sound "woo","wuo", or "yo" is pronounced at least three different ways in videos I have listened to. "Woo" is pronounced like the English word "boo", It is pronounced almost like the English word "hoard" without the "d" ending, and [this is the one I believe is most accurate], it is pronounced "woh" like the English word "whoa" as in the familiar American saying "Whoa, Nellie!".

As to the standard meaning given this song, I prefer to quote a somewhat lengthy comment from what I think is an American teacher blog, so that that quote becomes part of the record in case that blog, and my blog become no longer assessible. I will do so in my next post to this thread.

- Azizi Powell