Buranna | An ka taa

Intro

This short story comes from Moussa Travélé's 1923 book "Proverbes et contes bambara."

This particular "tale" is less a story than a joke.

Its humor hinges on tonal minimal pairs — that is, words that differ only by their tone (e.g., bá "river" VS bà "goat").

If the joke were in English, it might be about a word like "bat" which could either refer to an animal that flies around in the night or a long stick that one uses in baseball.

Language aside, the context of the joke is also the social relation that normally exists between a person and their in-laws in Manding-speaking West Africa. Case in point, a footnote on the title in the original edition says the following:

"The people of the Sudan are extremely reserved in the presence of their parents-in-law, to the extent that even the slightest inappropriate gesture in their presence is considered shameful."

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Summary

Sibiri and his friend decide to visit Sibiri's in-laws. Sibiri does not like the food they serve, so the two men bring their own sauce. But during their visit, things do not go as planned because of words that sound alike but are different in terms of tone, and the men find themselves in an embarrassing situation.

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Listen

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Text

Don kelen Sibiri ko à terikɛ ma: "Cɛ, to an ka taa n buranna na. Nka fo an mana¹ na duman munu ka à kɛ an ka foroko kɔnɔ. Ne burannakaw tɛ na duman munu abada.

U ye na munu k'à kɛfɛn bɛɛ kɛ o la k'o kɛ foroko la ka taa. U taatɔ, san y'u bugɔ k'u ka fìni bɛɛ ɲigin. U selen u buranna la, u buranmuso ye fìni jɛw da filen kɔnɔ k'o di à denmuso ma ko o ka taa à di à cɛ ni o terikɛ ma, u ka fìni ɲiginnen bɔ. Muso nana filen-fini masigi u kɔrɔ k'à fɔ: "Ma ko fìni jalan filɛ". ² Muso bɔlen, à cɛ ko: "Ɔ! N ma fɔ i ye? U nalen tɛ fíni jalan sigi an kɔrɔ nin? Hali ka na kɛ à la gansan? Cɛ, na ni an foroko ye". À jɛɲɔgɔncɛ ye foroko jigin k'à bɔ bolo la. À ye o dafalen k'o yɛlɛma fìni kan filen kɔnɔ ka firi dun sa.

Terikɛ ye bolo bila à la; à ko: "Un!" Muso cɛ ko: "Mun kɛra?" À jɛɲɔgɔncɛ ko: "Ayi! I fana ka i bolo don dɛ!"

Kabini à y'i bolo don ka fìni ye, à ko: "Cɛ, an ka taa; an tɛ se ka sigi ka nin malo lajɛ". U bɔra su fɛ ka taa.

Kabini o kɛra, maa buranna goya o goyama, i tɛ na munu ka taa n'o ye i bolo.

1 If this interpretation is correct, it's worth noting that the use of mana after fo here is atypical in modern texts. One would expect ka. The original reads "Nka fo an' ma na douman mounou..." and "ma" is likely the conditional marker mana which occasionally is pronounced or written maa. ↩

2 Here, the story hinges on a possible miscomphrension of a tonal minimal pair at play in the word fini jalan. The word for "clothing" is low tone: fìni. But the word fíni with a high tone means "fonio (a kind of grain used to make something like couscous). The original notes here "Les deux amis ont mal compris et ont pris le mot fènidialan (linge sec) pour firidialan (couscous sec)". Oddly, this means that original does not clearly demonstrate the tonal minimal pair. This may be an artefact of Travélé's own rewriting of the tale into a way that was legible without needing to mark tone (which hadn't yet been theorized and understood).' ↩

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Vocab

buran: in-law
na: sauce
k'à munu: to stir sth [here: "to whip up sth"]
foroko: goatskin; wineskin; leather pouch for liquids
-na/la: suffix that markes a place [e.g., buranna "place/home of one's in-laws"; can commonly attached to ethnic identities or last names]
san: sky; rain
fìni: clothing
fíni: fonio [grain that makes a couscous-like dish]
k'à ɲigin: to wet sth; to make sth wet
filen: calabash [a hollowed-out, dried gourd used as a container]
jalan: dry; dried [NOTE: jalen also exists, but jalan is an irregular form that is often used in many expressions]
gansan: plain; simple [here, it is used as an adverb]
jɛɲɔgɔn: companion [Lit. "co-unite"]
k'à dafalen: to undo/untie sth [to open it]
firi: Jollof-style fonio [Fr. fonio au gras]
malo: shame

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