# Oroma: boquu



## donkeyhotay

Hi. Newbie here. Hopefully I'm posting in the right place. I came across a word "boquu" that I'm thinking of using in a project, but have tried in vain to find its meaning and language. In my web searches, the documents I've found it used it seem to be mostly in languages with which I'm not familiar (possibly Dutch or an African language), but also a few isolated references in documents that appear to be Spanish or Italian. In a couple of instances, it almost seemed the author was using it as an alternative to the French "beaucoup" but I may have been reading too much into it. Any help will be greatly appreciated.


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## L'irlandais

Hello Donkeyhotay,
Welcome to the forums.


> The publication _"Parlons oromo: une langue de la corne de l'Afrique" by Christian Bader (L'Harmattan 2006) _gives the following definition :
> *boquu* = _nuque_
> *Oroma*_ (or oromiffa, or again afaan oromoo)_ is one of the official languages in Ethiopia,  spoken by some 25 millions people.
> Although ranked 5th African language by numerical importance, it remains little known outside of Ethiopia's borders.


This Ethiopian context might explain the Italian references you came across.  ~shrug~


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## donkeyhotay

Thanks for taking the time to help out. Further research done since my post also led me to the Ethiopian origin. I have found a couple of Oromo/English sites and have also contacted them for help but not yet heard back. A search on the word "nuque" (a word I was not familiar with) defines it as "nape, back of the neck". If they respond, I'll see if their translation is the same. Best regards,
Paul


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## donkeyhotay

Follow-Up:
A very nice gentleman from Ethiopia (who luckily also knows English), was kind enough to respond to a message I sent through his website contact form. I had seen the word used on his site. He confirmed that the word as spelled in Oromo means "back of the neck" or "nuque".


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## L'irlandais

donkeyhotay said:


> ... A search on the word "nuque" (a word I was not familiar with) defines it as "nape, back of the neck"...


Hi Paul,
You're right, I meant "nape".  After 9 years here, I'm speaking a strange mix of "franglais" ; "nuque" being the French for the English word "nape".  Sorry for any confusion.


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