Des chants pour les dieux. Analyse d'un vocabulaire codé (Tupuri, Tchad)

A semantic approach to the terminology concerning speech in Tupuri, an Adamawa Eastern language spoken in Chad and Cameroon, serves as an introduction to the analysis of a codified vocabulary used by certain women in their songs to the rain god. The concept and attributes of this god, as given in two songs, are exposed and compared with those of other divinities. The vocabulary of these songs, based on loan words, metaphors, grammaticalization by unmotivation of nouns, works as an argot language but the syntax is that of common tupuri. This lexical creativity, which fulfills a poetic function, confirms the women adepts of the rain god in their role as an elite group estranged from the ordinary Tupuri speaker by bestowing upon them the power of conversing with their god in his secret « language ».