Kumbaya

>>> A great example of etymological detectives at work.

Well, contrazz, we here at AWWW believe that Wikipedia can be used as a jumping-off point for further research, but we never rely on it as a sole source.

Yeah - me too. I've worked on some Wikipedia pages, and know how off-base they can be at times. This one has some good attributions.

As you said - a good starting point. I imagine there will continue to be contention about the origin of this word, and its song.

I'm a Wikipedian (of sorts) and I don't think WP is that bad an encyclopedia. We've tightened up the system a bit and there seems to be less vandalism going on. Aha! People who dislike WP seem to think that every mistake there is consciously contributed by the most upright editors. That is simply not true. That it is open to any and all alike (barring vandals who are duly blocked from editing) should never be let out of sight. There are many articles that are in dire need of professional attention. Another thing is that WP is non-profit. One of my main complaints, as a Wikipedian, is that there is this general high-school mentality as contributors are constantly needing to be reminded to cite their sources, etc. Alot of this makes many WP articles look like rough-draft reports, which is a real shame. But, I have to say that WP is much more reliable than Urban Dictionary, which is about as lax as you can get with editing. (I apologise for all of this sounding like an advertisement!)

I always thought that “come by here” as the origin and meaning of “kumbaya” was a bit too simplistic. There's probably a phrase in one of the Niger-Kordofanian (or, if you insist, Niger-Congo) languages that means something significant and is expressed as “kumbaya”. The construction just seems too African not to mean something in some language (other than Gullah).

There's probably a phrase in one of the Niger-Kordofanian (or, if you insist, Niger-Congo) languages that means something significant and is expressed as “kumbaya”. The construction just seems too African not to mean something in some language (other than Gullah).

But that's just guesswork, right? There's no evidence for that.