Sabari

Trial

Intro

In the following video, people in Niangoloko, Burkina Faso respond to my questions about the word sabali (which is pronounced and written sabari in Jula), which is commonly used in Manding-speaking contexts, but is tricky to translate in a single way in English.

When used as verb, it can often be literally translated as something like "to endure" (as in, "to accept, tolerate, and especially, be patient with things"). In fact, word originally comes from an word Arabic ṣabr, which is often translated as 'endurance' or 'persistance'.

Contextually, it can be used to say things like:

  • Come on!
  • Please!
  • Sorry!
  • Be patient!
  • Forgive me!

To investigate the word's usage though I asked people the following:

Mun kosɔn mɔgɔ b'à fɔ à tɔɲɔgɔn ye, ko "Sabari"?

Why does a person say to their peer, "Sabari"?

And:

Est-ce que tile fila nin na, i y'à fɔ dɔ ye ko "sabari"?

Have you said "Sabari" to someone in recent days?

The video is roughly two question segments from Episode 4 of Na baro kè.

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Instructions

  1. Watch — Watch the video without the subtitles. If they are on, click on the little "CC" symbol and turn them off.
  2. Watch and Read — Turn on the subtitles in Bambara/Jula (click on the little "CC" button) and read along. If you are lost, you can also switch it into English and then re-watch in Bambara/Jula. And remember, you can also slow down the video to make it easier to follow along. I recommend 75%. Click on the little gear symbol.
  3. Listen — For extra practice and exposure, listen passively to the excerpt like a podcast while commuting, cooking, walking, etc.

A video will be here later!

The distributive o construction

In the video we hear the following:

[…] ko kɛra cogo o cogo, à gwɛlɛyara cogo o cogo, i ka sabari!

"[…] no matter how an affair went down, no matter how difficult it has become, you should have patience"

Let's simplify this sentence:

Ko gwɛlɛyara cogo o cogo, i ka sabari!

"However difficult an affair has become, you should be patient!"

Within this sentence is a special grammatical construction known as the distributive which relies on o. At its simplest, o allows you to express the idea of "each (and every)" of something.

For instance:

Don o don, i ka sabari!

"Each and every day, you should have patience!"

The underlying construction is this:

X o x

"Any X"

Above, I translated it as "any". In other cases, it better to translate it as "every" or "each".

In any case, the word o by itself cannot be translated in a convenient way in English.

Instead it's best to view it as the distributive grammatical element that when surrounded by two nouns creates a meaning of "each, every, etc" in English.

In some cases, it's best to translate it by "every" and in other cases by "any".

Let's look back at the simplified example from the video:

Ko gwɛlɛyara cogo o cogo, i ka sabari!

In this sentence, the distributive construction involves the word cogo "manner; way". As per what I described above, cogo o cogo means something like "any manner", but in this case, it might make a little more sense if we translate it as "whatever manner":

Ko gwɛlɛyara cogo o cogo, i ka sabari!

"An affair has become difficult (in) whatever manner, you should be patient"

as in, "However difficult an affair has become, you should be patient"

The distributive o with cogo is this a convenient way to express "however".

In other cases, it might make more sense to be translated as "in any case":

Cogo o cogo, n tɛ sabari!

"In any case, I won't be indulgent!"

Regardless, this usage of the distributive that lines up with the English adverb "however" is mirrored with other similar words:

Similarly, the distributive is frequently used with tuma to express something like "whenever":

As you can imagine, this also applies to yɔrɔ to express the idea of "wherever"

  • wherever (with yɔrɔ 'place')

    Sabari bɛ yɔrɔ o yɔrɔ, n bɛ taa yen

    "Wherever there is patience/forgiveness, I am going there"

  • whenever (with tuma 'time')

    An bɛ kɛlɛ kɛ tuma o tuma, n bɛ sabari

    "Whenever we fight, I show patience"

  • whoever (with mɔgɔ 'person')

    N bɛ dimi mɔgɔ o mɔgɔ kɔrɔ, n bɛ yafa ɲini ale fɛ

    "Whoever I get mad at, I seek forgiveness from them"

    As in, "I seek forgiveness from anybody that I get mad at"

  • whatever (with fɛn 'thing' or ko 'affair')

    N bɛ fɛn o fɛn kɛ, i bɛ dimi!

    "Whatever I do, you get mad"

    As in, "Whenever I do anything, you get made"

  • whichever (with the relative marker min)

    I bɛ min o min fɛ, o fɔ!

    "Whichever you want, say it!"

    As in, "Whichever one you want, just say it!"

Expressing "beforehand" or "ever" with ka ye and ka deli

In the video, we hear a special usage with the verb k'à ye "to see sth". In fact, it is used two times over the course of two sentences by the same person:

À kɔni m'an sɔrɔ fɔlɔban tile fila nin na ka ye.

"It, in any case, hasn't happened to us yet recently"

Nka à delila k'an sɔrɔ ka ye.

"But it has happened to us beforehand"

While the sentences are a bit muddled or redundant in terms of semantics, they demonstrate a use of k'à ye or ka ye (the way that it should be written isn't clear) that expresses the idea "ever" or "beforehand" depending on the context.

Let's simplify the first sentence:

À m'an sɔrɔ ka ye

"It hasn't happened to us ever"

Roughly, "It hasn't obtained us and been seen"

And now the second one:

Nka à y'an sɔrɔ ka ye

"But it happened to us beforehand"

Roughly, "But it obtained us and was seen"

In my personal experience this usage is more prevalent in Jula than in Bambara.

That said, I did find [an example of the usage](http://cormande.huma-num.fr/corbama/#concordance?corpname=corbama-brut&tab=basic&keyword=kɛ ka ye&attrs=word&viewmode=kwic&attr_allpos=all&refs_up=0&shorten_refs=1&glue=1&gdexcnt=300&show_gdex_scores=0&itemsPerPage=20&structs=s%2Cg&refs=%3Ddoc.id%2C%23&showresults=1&act_opts=settings&showTBL=0&tbl_template=&gdexconf=&f_tab=basic&f_showrelfrq=1&f_showperc=0&f_showreldens=0&f_showreltt=0&c_customrange=0&operations=[{"name"%3A"iquery"%2C"arg"%3A"kɛ ka ye"%2C"query"%3A{"queryselector"%3A"iqueryrow"%2C"iquery"%3A"kɛ ka ye"}%2C"id"%3A9362}%2C{"name"%3A"filter"%2C"arg"%3A"[%23677822]"%2C"query"%3A{"pnfilter"%3A"p"%2C"queryselector"%3A"cqlrow"%2C"desc"%3A"[%23677822]"%2C"cql"%3A"[%23677822]"%2C"filfpos"%3A0%2C"filtpos"%3A0%2C"inclkwic"%3Atrue}%2C"id"%3A2280}]) in Bambara Reference Corpus:

jɔ[n] taamana ka ye? ka bɔ Ncifinna ka taa Bamakɔ jɔ[n] y'o kɛ ka ye?

"Who has traveled before? Leaving Ncifinna and going to Bamako, who has done it ever?"

In any case, ka ye is basically an alternative way of expressing what is often said with the verb ka deli, which is a little tricky because there isn't anything quite like it in English.

At its core, it means something like "to have ever had the experience of doing something". For instance:

I delila ka taa Bamakɔ?

"Have you ever had the experience 'to go' to Bamako?"

OR

"Have you ever gone to Bamako?"

As you can see, in this usage the verb is used with another verb in the infinitive:

ka deli ka VERB

"to ever.experience to VERB"

Here's another example combining ka deli and k'à fɔ "to say something":

I ma deli ka "sabari" fɔ?

"You haven't had.the.experience to say 'sabari'?"

As in, "You've never said 'sabari'?"

When ka deli is used with a noun, the meaning shifts to something more like "to get/be used to used to something". The underlying structure is ka deli fɛn na "to get.used to something". For instance:

An delila à la

"We are used/accustomed to it"

Roughly, "We have had the experience of it" → "We are used to it"

Let's wrap things up by taking a sentence with ka ye and stating it with the verb ka deli instead. First, with ka ye:

I y'à kɛ ka ye?

"Have you done it before/ever?"

And then with ka deli:

I delila k'à kɛ?

"Have you done it ever?"

Phase-of-time words (fɔlɔ, kaban, tuguni, etc.)

In the video, we hear the following sentence with the word kaban:

Ale y'à fɔ kaban

"He/she said it already"

This sentence is very straightforward, so we don't need to do much simplifying for once!

What's of interest for us at this time is the word kaban which means "already". It comes from the web ka ban which means "to end".

More importantly, kaban belongs to a collection of words that I am going to call phase-of-time words. Another potential label for them could be something like "stage-of-time" words. Let me explain why.

The word kaban is an adverb. It allows you to talk about the stage or phase of an event relative to another point in time — namely, whether it is "already" over. But, as you know, there are many other phases! For instance, the event might not be finished "yet".

Here are the main phase-of-time words in Bambara/Jula and their related variants grouped around their main conceptual pairings along with some examples.

(NOTE: The definitions and usages of some of these words or expressions is not exhaustive, but it covers their main uses as phase-of-time words.)

already vs not yet

  • already [something that took place previously]

    kaban (Lit. "to-finish")

    Sara taara kaban

    "Sara left already"

  • (not) yet [something that is expected to occur but hasn't]

    fɔlɔ (Lit. "first")

    Sara ma taa fɔlɔ

    "Sara hasn't left yet"

    ban (Lit. "finish")

    N m'o dege ban

    "I haven't learned that yet"

    fɔlɔban (Lit. "first-finish")

    À m'an sɔrɔ fɔlɔban

    "It hasn't happened to us yet"

still vs anymore

  • still [something that continues until now]

    hali bi (Lit. "even today") — Note that this turn of phrase is not an adverb so it can be placed at the beginning or the end of a sentence

    À tɛ "sabari" fɔ hali bi

    "He still doesn't say 'sabari'"

    OR

    Hali bi, à tɛ "sabari" fɔ

    "He still doesn't say 'sabari'

    hali sa

    An bɛ kɛlɛ la hali sa

    "We are still in a fight"

  • anymore [something that is no longer the case]

    tugun/tuguni/tuun/tun

    À tɛ "sabari" fɔ tuguni

    "He doesn't say 'sabari' anymore"

    OR

    N tɛn'à ɲɔgɔn kɛ tuguni

    "I won't do the same anymore"

    bilen

    À tɛ Mali la bilen

    "She's not in Mali anymore"

again

  • again [something that is repeated]

    tugun/tuguni/tuun/tun

    À y'à kɛ tuguni

    "He did it again"

    kokura / ko kura (Lit. "affair.new")

    À y'à kɛ kokura

    "He did it once again"

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Potential grammar notes will be here someday.

Coming soon n'Ala sɔnna!

k'à sabali/sabari
to endure; to have patience; to be indulgent; to forgive
ni ɲɔgɔn cɛ
between each other (Lit. "and each.other between")
ka digi
to push; to press
ka dimi
to get hurt/mad
k'à dimi
to hurt sb
adamadenya
personhood; life
ka deli
to have the experience of
dusu(kun)
heart
nisɔn
heart
ka yafa mɔgɔ ma
to forgive sb
k'à laadi
to advise
ka ban
to end
miseli
a needle
misennin
a little needle
k'à sɔgɔ
to pierce

 

Vocab list will be here someday!

 

Flashcards will be here someday!

Exercises will be here someday!