Our Rada songs are in either Ewe (pronounced ah way) or Fon depending on the researcher. But essentially Ewe and Fon are dialects of the Gbe language which is spoken in Benin, Ghana and Togo. It is a tonal language (i.e., a high, medium or low tone can change the meaning of a word) and the language spoken by most slaves. Today it is the root of many creole Caribbean languages. Words such as susu, mumu and jumbie are ewe/fon. We know that recordings of the Rada songs were made in 1953 but we haven’t found definitive research or translation. But the search continues.
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