African words in English

Now and then I read articles in different magazines or newspapers discussing the decline of Swedish because of the influx of words from English (usually American words) but words stemming from immigrant languages. I usually disagree to this because language is an ever evolving mechanism and saying that Swedish is declining means you haven't really understood how language works. People have a strong desire to communicate and we will make every effort to understand each other. Just look at how many pidgin and creole languages have formed over the years in African, South-American and the West-Indies. We could look even closer and find that Swedish and English are just a mix of words from all over the world. People travel and trade with each other and language have to change because has to stay functional. Of course you could argue that there might be a higher rate of change today. I don't know, maybe maybe not. However, yesterday we had a discussion on the word 'mumbo jumbo' which could be used in English and Swedish. Interestingly, in Swahili it means something like chaotic problems according to Father Beatus here at the Amani Centre. Of course I had to look it up on Wikipedia, but they rather explained he word as of West-African origin. According to Wikipedia it refers to a masked dancer whose main job is to solve disputes, especially the meaningless ones. Hence, we have a expression called mumbo jumbo referring to something confusing or meaningless in English and Swedish.

This made me wonder if there are other African influences in English and Swedish. So here is a list of words that some of thought were 'real' English/Swedish words.

• banana - West African, possibly Wolof banana
• bogus - Hausa boko-boko meaning fake or fraudulent
• bozo - stupid, West African
• boogie - Wolof or Sierra Leone, to dance
• chimpanzee - The name is derived from a Tshiluba language term "kivili-chimpenze", which is the local name for the animal and translates loosely as "mockman" or possibly just "ape".^[2]
• cola - from West African languages (Temne kola, Mandinka kolo)
• dig, in sense of understand or appreciate - from Wolof dega
• hip - from Wolof hipi and hepicat, one with eyes open
• jazz - from West African languages (Mandinka jasi, Temne yas)
• jive - possibly from Wolof jev
• juke, jukebox - possibly from Wolof and Bambara dzug through Gullah
• merengue (dance) possibly from Fulani mererek i meaning to shake or quiver
• mumbo jumbo- from mandigo name Maamajombo, a masked dancer
• okay - disputed origins, likely influenced by Wolof waw-kay (I like this one)

• dengue - possibly from Swahili dinga
• funk - from kikongo lu-fuki "bad body odor"
• gnu - from Bushman !nu through Khoikhoi i-ngu and Dutch gnoe
• goober - possibly from Bantu (Kikongo and Kimbundu nguba) 
• jumbo - from Swahili (jambo or jumbe or from Kongo nzamba "elephant")
• macaque - from Bantu makaku through Portuguese and French
• safari - from Swahili travel, ultimately from Arabic
• Tilapia - Possibly a latinization "thiape", the Tswana word for fish.
• tsetse - from a Bantu language (Tswana tsetse, Luhya tsiisi)
• zebra - possibly from a language in the Congo
• zombie - Central African (Kikongo zumbi, Kimbundu nzambi
• chachacha possibly from Kimbundu, onomatopoeia for ringing bells or rattles worn around the legs of a female dancers.
• coffee - disputed; either from the Ethiopian region/Kingdom of Kaffa, where coffee originated, or Arabic kahwa