This has probably been answered somewhere before, but I was getting my teeth drilled that day. Just what does kumbaya mean? –F. Pierson, via the Internet
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Oh Lord, kumbaya. Also spelled kum ba yah, cumbayah, kumbayah, and probably a few other ways. If you look in a good songbook you’ll find the word helpfully translated as “come by here,” with the note that the song is “from Angola, Africa.” The “come by here” part I’ll buy. But Angola? Someone’s doubtin’, Lord, for the obvious reason that kumbaya is way too close to English to have a strictly African origin. More likely, I told my assistant Jane, it comes from some African-English pidgin or creole–that is, a combination of languages. (A pidgin is a linguistic makeshift that enables two cultures to communicate for purposes of trade, etc; a creole is a pidgin that has become a culture’s primary language.) Sure enough, when we look into the matter, we discover Cecil’s conjecture is on the money. Someone’s grinnin’, Lord, kumbaya.
Why do they play bagpipes at police funerals?
