Nɛnɛwaati bɛ cogo di?

Intro

In the following video, people in the Sonsoribougou neighborhood of Bobo-Dioulasso respond to my questioning about the cold season (which was appropriate at the time because it was, well, cold season).

I ask two questions. First:

Nɛnɛwaati bɛ cogo di?
'How is the time of cold?'

And then:

Mun b'à yira i la ko nɛgɛwaati sera?
"What shows you that the time of cold has arrived?"

The video is a roughly two question segments from Episode 3 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.

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

• The lo variant of the focalization marker le
• N+V Compound verbs like daminɛ
• Use of yanni to express "before" or "instead"
• Verbal reduplication to express repetition or intensity
• R and L variability in and between Bambara and Jula
• Use of fɛnkɛ as a placeholder or filler
• Use of k'i yɛrɛ sɔrɔ to express "to seek/obtain well-being"

Grammar Points Explained

• The lo variant of the focalization marker le

  The focalization marker le in Jula or de in Bambara can be used to put emphasis on a particular part of a sentence (or the entire sentence when it appears at the end). For instance:

  Musa ye Sita fo

  "Musa greeted Sita"

  VS

  Musa le ye Sita le fo

  "Musa greeted Sita" [with emphasis on Musa; as in, "MUSA greeted Sita" and not "Musa greeted SITA"]

  In English, this kind of thing is normally accomplished via stress within the sentence. There isn't a particular word.

  In Jula, the focalization marker le is sometimes realized/pronounced lo. For instance in the video:

  […] puisque poussière lo bɛ na ni mura ni sɔgɔsɔgɔ le ye.

  "[…] because DUST brings colds and coughs"

  Interestingly, in this utterance, there also seems to be a second use of le in its "normal" form later in the sentence:

  […] puisque poussière lo bɛ na ni mura ni sɔgɔsɔgɔ le ye.

  "[…] because dust brings colds and coughs"

  In any case, what is important is not mixing up the presentative copula lo (which is don in Bambara) with the focalization marker. For example:

  Mun lo?

  "What is it?"

  VS

  Mun lo bɛ yen?

  "WHAT is there?"

  The Bambara equivalent of the latter example would be:

  Mun de bɛ yen?

  For simplicity's sake, I generally conventionally write the Jula focalization marker le regardless of its pronunciation, but you may encounter both.

• N+V Compound verbs like daminɛ

  In the video, we heard the following:

  An b'an nu datugu.

  "We close our noses"

  (as in, "We bundle ourselves up all the way to the nose")

  In this sentence, there is a good example of a compound verb: k'à datugu.

  It is a compound because we can transparently break down its parts:

  da-tugu

  "opening-close"

  You may be wondering, how do we know that it's not just two separate words? Something like this:

  An b'an nu da tugu

  "We close the opening of our nose"

  This could be possible, but some transformations of the original sentence show us that it makes sense to consider as a compound verb. For instance, if a similar sentence were in the passive voice, it would typically be said like this:

  An nu ma datugu

  "Our nose hasn't been closed"

  And not like this:

  An nu da ma tugu

  "Our nose's opening hasn't closed"

  As you can see, the underlying structure of daminɛ is NOUN + VERB (da + minɛ). This is typical for compound nouns.

  Let's look other examples that all use da (lit. "mouth"). First some seemingly redundant ones (because the original verb has more or less the same meaning):

  • k'à daminɛ 'to start sth' < da-minɛ 'mouth-grab'
  • k'à dayɛlɛ 'to open sth' < da-yɛlɛ 'mouth-open'
  • ka dade 'to hush up' < da-de 'mouth-hush'

  Now some less transparent ones:

  • k'à dabila 'to cease/stop sth' < da-bila 'mouth-leave'
  • k'à dafa 'to complete sth' < da-fa 'mouth-fill'

  Other compound nouns will also make use of words that can be traced back to body parts, etc:

  • k'à kunbɛn 'to meet up with sb' < kun-bɛn 'head-unite'
  • ka kɔsegin 'to return' < kɔ-segin 'back-return'
  • k'à ɲɛfɔ 'to explain sth' < ɲɛ-fɔ 'face-say'
  • k'à kɔrɔta 'to lift sth' < kɔrɔ-ta 'underside-take'
  • k'à kɔrɔfɔ 'to criticize sth' < kɔrɔ-fɔ 'underneath-say'

  Some incorporate can incorporate a postposition as well:

  • ka sennayaala 'to stroll' < sen-na-yaala 'foot-on-stroll'

  There are many other compound nouns and some that don't follow the N+V pattern, but let's leave them for another day.

• Use of yanni to express "before" or "instead"

  In the video, we hear the following line:

  Tuma caman, bon, yanni 2h du matin, 3h, waati nɛnɛ... ouais!

  "Oftentimes, well, before 2am or 3am [arrives], the cold… yeah [watch out for it]!"

  This sentence includes a use of the grammatical conjunction yanni. (There is also a variant or synonym sanni/sani that functions the exact same way.)

  This word can be traced backed etymologically to yan-ni 'here and'.

  But nowadays, it has become a grammatical element that can express "before" or "instead".

  For instance, if we simplify and modify the original utterance from the video for clarity's sake, we could have something like this:

  Yanni 2h ka se, nɛnɛ b'i minɛ!

  "Before 2am arrives, the cold grabs you!" [as in, "By the time 2am, the cold hits you!"]

  But yanni can also be used to express "instead" or "rather":

  Yanni i ka to nɛnɛ la, i ka na bon kɔnɔ!

  "Instead of you remaining in the cold, you should come in the house!"

  As you can see in both examples, the use of yanni generally requires the use of the optative/subjunctive marker ka.

  But you can also use it with infinitive marker ka. For instance:

  Yanni ka taa kɛnɛ ma, an k'an yɛrɛ datugu

  "Before going outside, let's bundle ourselves up"

  [Lit. "Before to go outside…"]

  Or:

  Yanni ka to nɛnɛ la, i ka na bon kɔnɔ!

  "Instead of remaining in the cold, you should come in the house!"

  [Lit. "Instead to remain in the cold…"]

• Verbal reduplication to express repetition or intensity

  In the video, we hear the following sentence:

  Fɔɲɔ bɛ ja-ja

  "The wind becomes very dry"

  This is a simple example of verbal reduplication. That is, the doubling of a verb to create a slightly modified meaning that is typically related to repetition or intensification.

  The plain equivalent of the above example would be as follows with the verb ka ja:

  Fɔɲɔ bɛ ja

  "The wind becomes dry"

  By reduplicating the verb (which is generally marked by a dash - between the repetition; e.g, ja-ja), we intensify the act of drying:

  Fɔɲɔ bɛ ja-ja

  "The wind becomes very dry"

  In Bambara, any verb in theory can be reduplicated.

  (NOTE: When reduplication occurs, each instance of the verb retains its underlying tone; for instance, k'à jà-jà [which would be realized jǎ-jà in most cases].)

  There are two other occurrences in the video:

  Farikolo dɔw bɛ **pɛrɛn-pɛrɛn**

  "Some bodies crack all over"

  (as in, "The skin of some people get all chapped")

  _[…] u bɛ pull-over-w don-don, ka chapeau don-don

  "[…] they hurriedly put on sweatshirts and they hurriedly put on hats"

• Expressing "anymore" with tuguni, etc

• R and L variability in and between Bambara and Jula

  In some varieties of Jula, R appears in many places where L appears in Bambara.

  This is notably the case with the postposition la, which defaults to ra in many Jula varieties (though there is also la and na). For instance, take this example from the video:

  […] ni chapeau bɛ se ka don, i b'à don k'i yɛrɛ datugu… bana kana don i ra quoi

  ""[…] if a hat can be worn, you wear it and get yourself bundled up… [so that] an illness doesn't enter into you, you know"'

  In other cases, it can apply to general vocabulary:

  wulu 'dog'

  wuru 'dog'

  The variability can also go the other way around. In Burkinabè Jula, one generally hear the progressive construction with R:

  N bɛ taara

  "I am going"

  While in Ivoirian Jula, one generally hears the progressive construction with L:

  N bɛ taala

  "I am going"

  In general, this variability causes no communication difficulties. Across varieties, it can almost be considered free variation for many words.

• Use of fɛnkɛ as a placeholder or filler

  When we speak, we often use various words as placeholders or fillers.

  Placeholders are words that stand in for things when we can't recall the word, person, etc., or we simply don't use it for speed purposes or the like. Think of words like "watchmacallit" or "thingamajig", or "whats-their-face".

  Fillers (sometimes called other things like "discourse markers") are the other words that we often use when thinking of what to say next. Think of words like "um" or "uh".

  In Bambara, one word that can fill both of these roles is fɛnkɛ (which you may also hear pronounced [fɛngɛ]).

  In this example from the video, I'd argue thatfɛnkɛ is used a filler:

  Et puis fɛnkɛ nin, nɛnɛ min bɛ yan-yɔrɔ nin, ani tubabunɛnɛ tɛ kelen ye.

  "Et then um, the cold which is here and the cold of the West isn't the same"

  In other cases, it is clearly more of placeholder. People use it in exchanges like this at the market for instance:

  – I bɛ mun kɔ?
  – N bɛ fɛnkɛ fɛ
  – Mun fɛn?
  – Fugula

  – What are you looking?
  – I want a watchmacallit
  – What (kind of) thing?
  – A hat

  In this case, it takes the place of a noun.

  But it can also take the place of verb when you can't recall it:

  – Nɛnɛ bɛna fɛnkɛ
  – Mun?
  – Nɛnɛ bɛna se kɛ!

  – The cold will you-know
  – What?
  – The cold will arrive, man!

  Etymologically, fɛnkɛ comes from fɛn 'thing'. This perhaps explains a parallel usage of chose in the same way in West African French (e.g., Je veux chose… un chapeau "I want a watchmacallit… hat".)

• Use of k'i yɛrɛ sɔrɔ to express "to seek/obtain well-being"

  The word yɛrɛ can be tricky to translate one-to-one in English. The French word même is a closer one-to-one (especially in West African French).

  In any case, you are already familiar with as something that functions like "self" in English (e.g., I yɛrɛ dun? "And yourself?").

  With this in mind, the verbal expression k'i yɛrɛ sɔrɔ literally means 'to obtain yourself'.

  It can be used in a range of ways to express the idea of seeking or obtain (what we might for lack of better word) call "well-being".

  In the video, there is an example that dovetails with the idea of physical well-being:

  Surtout, nɛnɛtuma, an ka denmisɛnw tɛ u yɛrɛ sɔrɔ

  "Especially [during] cold season, our children don't feel their best"

  anw yɛrɛ t'an yɛrɛ sɔrɔ.

  "we ourselves don't feel at our best"

  In other cases, it can seem closer to pursuing happiness or more abstractly some idea self-realization (which actually captures the idea of "obtaining yourself").