Telling Time

Students often want to know how to tell time in Bambara.

The situation is a little bit complex. In short, there are three major systems at play:

• French for "clock time"
• Muslim prayers as everyday anchor points
• Semi-official coinages that one hears on broadcast media

Let's look quickly at all three.

French for "Clock Time"

In terms of telling time formally as indicated by a clock, people often use French with some optional Bambara added in.

For instance:

une heure (waati)

Lit. "one o'clock (time)"

Note that "une heure" is simply French. The word waati is Bambara. It's optionally added in. This points to how integrated the French expressions for time are in Bambara language speech.

Basically for everyday speech, you want to know how to tell time in French. Here's an example:

huit heure quarante (waati)

eight forty (time)

Muslim Prayers as Anchor Points

An alternative way of talking about time is to use Muslim prayer times as anchors. For instance:

• fajiri = dawn-time prayer [before sunrise]

• selifana = lunch-time prayer [Lit. "prayer-meal"]

• laansara = afternoon prayer [around 3-4pm]

• fitiri = dusk prayer

• saafo = evening prayer [around 8pm]

You can hear these used in a variety of ways.

For instance:

• fajiri la/fɛ = at fajiri
• fajiri waati la = at fajiri time

Semi-Official Coinages

There is also a system of more or less official coinages that one often hears in broadcast media, but not so often or at all in everyday conversation.

The major relevant units and terms are as follows:

• nɛgɛ (kan)ɲɛ = metal (sound)-strike → "hour" This translate to "o'clock" when dealing with whole number times (e.g., "three o'clock", but not "three thirty")

• sanga = time → "minute"

• ɲakami/ɲɛkɔmi/kɔmi-ko = (eye)wink-affair → "second"

Here's an example putting it all together:

Nɛgɛ kanɲɛ segin ni sanga bi naani
metal sound 8 and second 40

8:40 [AM or PM]