Greetings Extended

In "Greetings" we learned greetings in their most basic form. In this chapter, we're going to cover greetings extended. That is to say, we're going to unpack some of the things that are frequently (or almost always) said after the very basic greetings like i ni sɔɔma or i ni wura, etc.

Specifically, we're going to cover four things:

• Tana ma si/telen?: The typical follow-up questions that are directly related to the time of greeting
• Tana tɛ X (la)?: The typical follow questions to ask about other people
• Tana si tɛ: An all-purpose response
• X don?, etc: Other common questions and responses found in greetings

Have you spent the day/night without an ill?

In the first lesson, we learned basic exchanges that go like this:

– I ni wura!
– Nba! I ni wura!

– Good afternoon!
– Nba! Good afternoon!

This basic exchange is possible, but greetings will almost always go on much further. The most typical way that greetings get extended is by a question about how someone has passed the night or the day.

In the morning (that is, whenever you greet someone with sɔɔma), the question that someone will often ask you is:

Tana ma si?

'Has an ill not passed the night?'

This expression comes from tana ('ill; evil') and the verb ka si ('to pass the night'; see the note below). The exact details of what is going on grammatically need not worry us for now. Let's just say that it idiomatically means, 'Did you pass the night without an ill?' or 'Did you sleep well?'

(NOTE: The verb itself is si, but in Manding, one cites verbs with the infinitive marker ka. This is just like in English where we say to go, to run, etc., even though the verbs are technically just go and run)

Tana ma si? can appear either directly after a response like Nba! I ni sɔɔma or it may simply take its place like this:

– Álu ni sɔɔma! (to multiple people)
– Nse! Tana ma si?

– Good morning!
– Nse! Did you pass the night without an ill?

A similar expression is used in the same way for the three other times of day (e.g., tele, wura, su):

Tana ma telen?
'Did you pass the day without an ill?'

As you can see it involves the same word tana ('ill; evil; totem') plus a verb, ka telen, which means 'to pass the day.'

This gives us the following extended greeting questions for the different times of day:

• sɔɔma = Tana ma si?
• tele / wura / su = Tana ma telen?

(NOTE: You may also hear both of these questions with an optional word ba at the end (e.g, Tana ma si/telen ba?). It's simply a formal way of marking a sentence as a yes/no question. You will learn more about down the road.)

Is there not an ill…

After this initial extended greeting, people will often ask you about someone else in your social circles. They often do so with the following expression:

Tana tɛ X la?
ill + is.not + X + upon

'Is there not an ill upon X?'

In this expression, X can be replaced by just about anything. Some of the more typical things to ask about though are yourself or other people:

• i = you
• i kɛ = your husband
• i moso = your wife
• denbaya = the family
• Aminata = Aminata (a woman's name)
• Laginɛkalu: the people of Guinea (from X-ka 'person from X')

For instance:

Tana tɛ i kɛ la?

'Is an ill not upon your husband?'

(NOTE: The postposition la ['upon; at; in'] generally turns into na when it is preceded by a word that ends with a nasal sound; e.g., Tana tɛ i den NA)

Alternatively, people might just ask about ills being in particular places:

• yan = here
• yen = there
• Laginɛ = Guinea
• Kankan = Kankan (a major Maninka-speaking city of the highlands of Guinea)
• lu ma = in the courtyard (as in, 'at home')

In such cases, there's no need to use the postposition la (which I have been translating here as 'upon'). For instance:

Tana tɛ yen?

'Is there not an ill there?'
(as in, 'Is everything going ok where you are?')

"No ill": A general response

How does one respond to the two extended greeting questions that we just covered?

As you can imagine, just like with the question "How are you?" in English, there's a range of different ways to respond (e.g., "Alright", "Good", "I'm doing well", etc).

For starters, I want to offer one simple option because you can generally use it as an all-purpose response during greetings:

Tana si tɛ!
ill + any + there.isn't

"There isn't any ill!" (lit. "There isn't/ain't no ill")

This expression works just fine on its own as a response to either Tana ma si/telen? or Tana tɛ X (la)? questions. Take the following as example of how it works in practice:

– I ni tele!
– Nba! I ni tele! Tana ma telen?
– Tana si tɛ!
– Tana tɛ denbaya la?
– Tana si tɛ! Tana tɛ Ameriki?
– Tana si tɛ!

– Goodday!
– "Nba!" Goodday! Is the day passing in peace?
– There is no ill!
– There is no ill upon the family?
– There is no ill! There is no ill in America?
– There is no ill!

Other responses, other questions

Depending on where you are and who you are with, the expression Tana si tɛ may not be the most typical way to respond to questions. In fact, as you'll notice, people often switch between a range of different responses.

Below are a few of the most common ones with simplified translations.

Don't worry about the grammar of the expressions for now. You will be able to unpack their exact meaning soon. What's most important for the time being is that they roll off your tongue as canned responses in any greeting exchange that you have with someone.

All-purpose responses

These responses can be used regardless of who or how many people someone is asking about.

• Tana si tɛ = There isn't any ill
• Tana tɛ = There isn't an ill
• Hɛrɛ (dɔrɔn) = Peace (only)

Shifting responses

Other responses require that you adjust the pronoun of the expression to fit the person or people that are being asked about.

Here's a few common ones that you may hear or find fun to use:

• Tana (si) tɛ X la = 'Suffering isn't upon X'
• X ka kɛndɛ = 'X is healthy'
• X ye yan = 'X is here'

For each one of these expressions, you need to fill in the blank with the appropriate pronoun based off the question that someones asks you.

Here's a sample dialogue to show you what I mean:

– Tana tɛ i la?
– Tana tɛ n na.
– I moso ka kɛndɛ?
– À ka kɛndɛ!
– Dennɛnnu don?
– Tana si tɛ àlu la!

– Is there an ill upon you?
– There isn't an ill upon me.
– Is your wife healthy?
– She is healthy!
– And your children?
– There's no ill upon them!

And here's a simplified list of pronouns to get you started (you'll learn more about the different forms that each pronoun can take down the road):

• n, ne or nde = I
• i, ile or e = you
• à = he/she
• an = we
• álu = you all
• àlu = they

(NOTE: The expression Tana tɛ X la can sound and be written "contracted" when the word following tɛ starts with a vowel. For instance, Tana tɛ à la → Tana t'à la. This kind of thing is common when two vowels meet across word boundaries as you will see later.)

Extended question variations

Similarly, people won't always stick to using just Tana ma si/telen? and Tana tɛ X (la)? to ask questions during greetings.

In some cases, they may use a variation involving the words ka si and ka telen that you know from Tana ma si? and Tana ma telen?:

• Hɛrɛ sida/telenna? = Did you pass the night/day in peace? (lit. 'Did peace pass the night/day?')

(NOTE: The word sida is a "conjugated" form of the verb ka si ('to pass the night'). By convention, I am writing it with a d, but in some cases you might read or hear it as an r (e.g., Hɛrɛ siRa?. This variation between r and d is common in many Maninka words depending on the region, as you will come to learn.

In other cases, they may ask questions that are helpful to know even before we cover the grammar behind them:

• X ka kɛndɛ?: Is X healthy?
• X ye di?: How is X?
• X don? = And X? (as in, 'What about BLANK, how are they?')

All of these questions can be answered using one or another of the responses that we covered above.

(NOTE: Don [sometimes spelled do] is technically a "contrastive particle"; it's a word that serves to draw our attention to some new topic of discussion. For our purposes though, we can just think of don as meaning 'and,' but with a larger implied meaning that is something like 'And what about so-and-so? How are they?'. But be careful, don in Maninka can be a easy to mix it up with another word in Bambara that is spelled the exact same way: the presentative copula don ['it/this is'], which is covered in the Bambara Grammar chapter on "Greetings Extended". They are not the same and their meanings are completely distinct.)

Second-nature response and the ritual of greeting

A final note on greetings: as you can see they are much more involved than what would be taught in a basic English or French class.

Without going into the cultural side of why this is (but you can explore it in Episode 1 of Na baro kè), what's important for you now is not to focus on mastering the meaning and grammar of all these questions and responses. Instead, you should work to turning all of the elements of greetings into second-nature responses that are part of a broader ritual of greeting.

It won't matter much if you misplace a response here or there (by messing up the pronouns for instance). It will matter though if you are able to participate fluidly in the back-and-forth ritual elements of greetings in Maninka, and Manding in general.

Summary

Ayiwa! That's hardly the end of greetings, but you now have the essentials to at least sound semi-credible while you continue to pick up words and find your preferred way to respond to questions about your life, loved ones, etc. Here's what we covered:

• Two types of questions that are part of greetings that extend beyond "hello":

  • Tana ma si/telen? 'Has the day/night passed without an ill?'

  • Tana tɛ X (la)?

    'Is there not an ill (upon) X?'

• How to respond to these extended greeting questions:

  • Tana si tɛ 'There is no ill'

• A range of other possible responses and question variations:

  • All-purpose responses (e.g., Hɛrɛ dɔrɔn, etc)
  • Shifting responses (e.g., Tana si tɛ X la, X ka kɛndɛ, etc) and the pronouns needed to respond correctly

• Question variations (e.g., Hɛrɛ sida? instead of Tana ma si?, etc) and other common questions that come up in greetings:

  • X don? = And X?
  • X ka kɛndɛ?= Is X healthy?
  • X ye di?= How is X?