International Journal of Language & Linguistics

The Dagbamba Damba Repertoire
Rashid, Mohammed Abubakari

Abstract
The paper focuses on the Dagbamba, a Mabia language spoken in Ghana’s Northern Region. The paper discusses ‘opening’, ‘invitation’, ‘welcoming’ and ‘goodbye’ songs of the Damba repertoire (Damba yila). Shownin the paper, is the ‘opening song’, ‘invitation song’, ‘welcoming song’ and ‘goodbying song’ specifically performed to begin,invite, welcome the king to the grounds and goodbye the king or thank the king respectivelyin the Damba repertoire. The paper illustrates that the structure and form of the repertoire are in short verses. It also illuminates the underlying major themes such as reverence, caution, fidelity and gratitude. Further, the papershows some literary devices employed such as repetition, assonance, alliteration and many others. The paper concludes in recognition of the difficulty of determining the exact stanzas of the Damba repertoire as the performer’s unconsciousness of the formal grouping. Evidently, the paper concludes that the Damba repertoire goes beyond mere performance.

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