Urban Word of the Day - 2/5/09

Banjo –
A stringed instrument developed by enslaved Africans in the United States. African Slaves in the American South and Appalachia fashioned the earliest banjos after instruments they had been familiar with in Africa, with some of the earliest instruments being referred to now as "gourd banjos". The name banjo is commonly thought to be derived from the Kimbundu term mbanza. Some etymologists derive it from a dialectal pronunciation of "bandore", though recent research suggests that it may come from a Senegambian term for the bamboo stick used for the instrument's neck.