Mun kosɔn an b'à fɔ ko 'sabari'?

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.

Watch

Watch the video without the subtitles. If they are on, click on the little "CC" symbol and turn them off.

Watch & Read

Now turn on the subtitles in Bambara (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.

List of Selected Grammar Points

• Expressing "each/every" with the distributive o construction
• Expressing "before(hand)" or "ever" with ka ye

Grammar Points Explained

• Expressing "each/every" with 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:

  • 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!"

  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"

• Expressing "beforehand" or "ever" with ka ye

  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"

  My personal experience suggests to me that this usage is more prevalent in Jula than in Bambara.

  It often can be used in place of ka deli "to have the experience of sth". (Though in the example above, the person used both at the same time!) For instance:

  I y'à kɛ ka ye?

  "Have you done it before/ever?"

  VS

  I delila k'à kɛ?

  "Have you done it ever?"

  That said, I did find an example of the usage 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?"