Goodbyes & Benedictions

In "Greetings" and "Greetings Extended", I covered aspects of how to greet people in Bambara. Great, now you can get into a conversation! But how do you get out of it?

In this chapter, we're gonna cover a few things about saying goodbye in Bambara:

• a single expression to say goodbye
• how to say the equivalent of "See you [...]"
• benedictions
• how to respond to benedictions
• how benedictions can fit into greetings

Goodbye: "K'an bɛn"

There's a range of ways that one can "take leave" in Bambara. The simplest way is a single expression that functions similarly to "Bye!" in English.

That expression is:

• K'an bɛn

(NOTE: You don't pronounce the n on the end of bɛn as a full letter. In Bambara, an n that follows a vowel just marks what is called "nasalization." You let the air of your breath pass through your nose instead of your mouth. English doesn't have any good examples, but you can hear how nasalization works if you compare the French words bon ('good') and beau ('beautiful'). Yes, they are spelled differently, but, the two word's sounds are exact same except that bon is nasalized.)

Using K'an bɛn is as simple as that; you simply say it whenever it's time to go and your friend will respond back with the same:

– Ayiwa! K'an bɛn!
– K'an bɛn, Adama!

– Alright! Goodbye!
– Bye, Adama!

So in short, we can say that k'an bɛn means 'goodbye'. That's a good simple one-to-one translation, but what does it actually mean?

In reality, the expression K'an bɛn comes from a fuller expression that includes another word and has a different literal translation:

Ala ka an bɛn

'May God unite us'

There are three words that we can easily translate in this expression:

• Ala: God
• an: we; us
• bɛn: unite; bring together

Put together with the grammatical word ka (you will learn about this in "Optatives" down the road), we have a single expression that means something like:

Ala + ka + an + bɛn
God + ka + us + bring.together

'May God bring us together'

In general, people almost always use the shortened form K'an bɛn.

► See you "___"

Because of its literal meaning, you can also use K'an bɛn as the basis for something equivalent to "See you [...]" in English. All you have to do is add a specific time word after K'an bɛn. For instance:

K'an bɛn sini

'See you tomorrow'

The underlying pattern therefore is K'an bɛn + [...]. Some other helpful words and expressions that work well here are:

• kɔfɛ = later; afterwards
• sɔgɔma = in the morning
• tile fɛ = in the daytime
• wula fɛ = in the afternoon/early evening
• su fɛ = at night

(NOTE: In "Situatives" and "To Have", you'll learn more about the fɛ that appears in the above expressions. )

Benedictions

While you can drop a simple K'an bɛn when it is time to hit the road, in many circumstances, you'll hear people engaging in a back-and-forth exchange of benedictions as part of the act of taking leave.

By "benediction" (dugawu in Bambara), I mean sentences where someone asks God to make things be a certain way. This might seem odd to many Westerners who don't often invoke God as part of everyday goodbyes, but it is part and parcel of things in Bambara.

(NOTE: For the word dugawu, you might also see or hear other variants like duga or duba. There are a lot of spellings and pronunciations because it's a loanword from Arabic originally. But they all mean 'benediction'!)

As we saw with K'an bɛn, benedictions can appear in either a full form or a truncated form.

There's essentially an infinite number of benedictions that one might hear or use depending on the context so we're not going to look at a lot of specific ones here. Instead we're gonna cover what you need to know to recognize something as a benediction.

The full form includes the word Ala 'God'. For example:

Ala ka tile nɔgɔya!

'May God make the day easy!

In the truncated form, the word Ala or 'God' is implied. For instance:

Ka tile nɔgɔya!

'May God make the day easy!'

You can generally use the full and the truncated forms of benedictions indiscriminately. Whether you say the explicit word Ala or not won't have any effect on the message. For instance:

(Ala) ka sira diya!

May God make the road nice!
(Said in a context similar to "Safe travels" or "Drive safe")

Or:

(Ala) k'an dɛmɛ!

'May God help us!'

Or:

(Ala) ka tile hɛɛrɛ caya!

'May God make the peace of the day abundant!'

Great, now you know how to recognize and say benedictions. But how do you respond to them?

Responding to Benedictions

Responding to benedictions is easy. You simply use the equivalent of "amen" which is amiina.

Each and every benediction you hear or receive should be welcomed with amiina. For instance:

– Ala ka bi diya!
– Amiina!

– May God make the day pleasing!
– Amen!

Sometimes, people will pronounce multiple benedictions in a row. This means that you should be prepared to respond to each and every benediction with amiina. For instance:

– Ala k'an si!
– Amiina!
–Ala ka dugu ɲuman jɛ!
– Amiina!

– May God make us pass the night!
– Amen!
– May God make the day rise well!
– Amen!

Other times, benedictions and "amens" fly back and forth between people. For instance:

– Ala ka su hɛɛrɛ caya!
– Amiina! Ala k'an si!
– Amiina! K'an kelen-kelen wuli!
– Amiina! K'an bɛn!
– K'an bɛn!

– May God make the night's peace abundant!
– Amen! May God make us pass the night!
– Amen! May God make us rise one-by-one!
– Amen! "Bye!"
– "Bye!"

What's important at the beginner stage is not necessarily understanding or catching the precise meaning of every benediction. Instead, it's to be able to recognize benedictions (Ala ka ... or Ka ...) and be able to respond fluidly with amiina.

(NOTE: During benediction exchanges, amiina often gets said in a few different ways: truncated, ami(n); repeated amin-amin-amin; or with other words tacked on amiina yaarabi [which comes from the Arabic 'Amen, my Lord'])

Once you get the hang of that, you'll be able to participate in the ritual exchange of benedictions by offering your own benedictions in between those of your interlocutor.

The easiest one for this is the all-purpose benediction response Ala ka dugawu minɛ ('May God fulfill/accept your benediction' [lit. "May God grasp the benediction'). For instance:

– Ala ka bi diya!
– Amiina! Ala ka dugawu minɛ!
– Amiina!

– May God make today pleasing!
– Amen! May God fulfill the benediction!
– Amen!

► Benedictions as part of greetings

While benedictions are perhaps most often exchanged at the end of a conversation, they can also be mixed in as part of initial greetings. That is, someone could greet you "Goodday" and, at the same time, wish you a nice day. For instance:

– I ni sɔgɔma!
– Nba! Hɛɛrɛ sira?
– Hɛɛrɛ! Ala ka bi diya!
– Amiina!

– Good morning!
– Nba! Did you pass the night in peace?
– Peace! May God make the day pleasing!
– Amen!

► "Say hello to so-and-so!'"

Along with benedictions and the expression K'an bɛn, another frequent part of saying goodbye in Bambara is asking and accepting to greet other people.

There a few variations in how one can do this, but there are two essential parts.

(NOTE: Remember! Don't worry about the meaning of all the pieces of the expressions for now. You'll begin to understand the details when we look at "Verbs in the Present" and "Verbs in the Past". Being comfortable with the ritual of saying and responding fluidly is what is most important at this stage.)

• Request
  Ko an bɛ [...] fo ('Say that we greet [...]')

  Even though this expression uses an ('we'), it works perfectly well even if you are saying it as a lone person. The idea is that you are requesting the greeting on behalf of a larger entourage of people such as your family, courtyard, friends, etc. (Though you can also switch out the pronoun to n if you would like.)

  I bɛ [...] fo n ye ('You greet [...] for for me' [as in, "You go ahead and greet so-and-so for me"])

• 'Response
  [...] na à mɛn or [...] bɛna à mɛn ('[...] will hear it')

  For the response you will need to adjust the pronoun based off who someone requests that you greet. For instance, if someone asks you to greet somɔgɔw (that is, your family members), you will need to use u ('they'), but if they request that you greet i teri ('your friend'), you will need to use à.

Together, these two parts form a single ritual that figures into the broader ritual of saying goodbye. For instance:

– Ala ka wula nɔgɔya!
– Amiina!
– Ko an bɛ u fo!
– U n'à mɛn!
– K'an bɛn!
– K'an bɛn!

– May God ease the evening!
– Amen!
– Say that we greet them [that is, the people where you are going, at home, etc.]!
– They will hear it [that is, your greeting]!
– Bye!
– Bye!

(NOTE: The expressions Ko an bɛ [...] fo, [...] na à mɛn, [...] bɛna à mɛn may often sound or be written "contracted" when spoken: e.g., K'an b'u fo! , U n'à mɛn!, À bɛn'à mɛn)

Summary

Ayiwa! Here's what we covered:

• A simple way of saying goodbye:
  • K'an bɛn! which literally comes from a fuller expression Ala ka an bɛn that means 'May God bring us together'
• How to recognize benedictions:
  • They always start with: Ala ka or the shorter form Ka where the word for God is implied.
• How to respond to benedictions:
  • Amiina (or its spoken variants ami(n), amin-amin-amin, and amiina yaarabi) which means 'amen'
  • The all-purpose benediction follow-up Ala ka dugawu minɛ
• How benedictions can be part of initial greetings
• How to request and accept to greet others for someone using K'an bɛ [...] fo, etc.