Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
From: hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: 07 Nov 1994 22:29:33 GMT
Subject: Swahili names in the Lion King?

I have heard two reports of a letter from Pat Oliver in the british
newspaper _The Guardian_.  Dave Budd quotes it as follows:

  I took my children to see Walt Disney's cartoon The Lion King and
  was showing off my slight knowledge of Swahili by translating the
  names of the characters - "Simba" meaning lion, and "Shenzi"
  meaning barbarian.  My son asked me what "Pumba" (the name of the
  warthog) meant, and I had to look that one up in the dictionary.
  It said "excretion from under the foreskin".

Clearly someone is being cute, but is it Pat Oliver pulling the
newspaper's leg, or some nameless Disneydroid trying to one-up the
Little Mermaid?  Does someone have an authoritative translation of
Pumbaa?  For that matter, how about Nala, Musafa, Sarabi, Zazu,
Rafiki, and Timon?  I assume Scar, Banzai, and Ed are not Swahili.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil