g) The few banana cultivars are brought by
the Portuguese
from India and Brazil, along with their trade name, palana,
a name of Indian provenance.
h) This is borrowed into Mandinka as bàrandá and thence diffused into other Mande languages, where
it undergoes phonological
transformation and shortening. Forms like Vai ɓàànà
are likely to have been borrowed into English as ‘banana’.
i) Banana
is then re-introduced into languages of Anglophone Cameroun in the colonial era,
and borrowed into
neighbouring languages, eventually spreading into Chad.Summary of the linguistic evidence for the history of Musaceae
in Africa III