The Lord’s Prayer in Wolof:
Suñu bai bi chi asaman,
na sa tur sela,
na sa ngur dika,
lo buga na am chi suf
neke chi asaman.
Mei ñu tey suñu dundu gir gu neka
te bal ñu suñu ton,
naka le ñu bale nha ñu ton,
te bul ñu bayi ñu tabi chi bolis,
wande musal ñu chi lu bon.
Amen.
Wolof is the native language of the Wolof and Lebou people, who make up 40% of Senegal. Another 40% of Senegalese speak it as a second language. It is also widely known in the Gambia. It used to be common in what is now the US back in the 1600s and 1700s.
- Speakers: 12 million (6 million native).
- Countries: 80% of Senegal, 20% to 25% of the Gambia, 7% of Mauretania.
- Script: mainly Roman, but some write in Wolofal (based on the Arabic alphabet) or even Garay (invented in 1961, pictured below).
- Language family: West Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo family.
Wolof is a close cousin of Fulani. It is related to most languages in West Africa, like Bambara and Igbo. It is a distant cousin of Bantu languages, like Swahili and Zulu. Cheikh Anta Diop, a Wolof speaker and an Egyptologist, says it is distantly related to Ancient Egyptian.
Unlike most western European languages:
- The time or tense of a verb is shown not by verb endings but by putting words before the verb.
- You can sometimes drop the verb “to be” from a sentence.
These are common in Niger-Congo languages – and Ebonics: “She fine”, “He been gone”, “He done fixed it.” That is no accident: most Black people who came to North America spoke a Niger-Congo language. That shaped how they learned and used English.
In 1670, the Wolof or Jolof empire broke apart. The wars of secession created tons of prisoners of war, who were sold off as slaves. That made Wolof the leading African language in what is now the American South by 1700.
Words and meanings that likely come from Wolof (or a closely related language):
- banana – by way of Spanish or Portuguese.
- chick – from jigen, woman. Helped by how jigen sounds like “chicken”.
- bug – from bugal, to annoy, worry.
- cat (as in “cool cat”) – from -kat, a person who…
- chigger (bedbug) – from jiga, insect, sand flea.
- dig – from deg, to understand.
- done (as in “He done fixed it”) – from doon, to mark an action as completed in the past. Helped by the “done” of “I have done.”
- guy (as in “you guys”) – from gay, fellows, persons, used as a term of address. Helped by the English name “Guy”.
- hip – from hipi or hepi, to open one’s eyes, to know what is going on.
- honky – from hong, red or pink, used to describe white people (you see that in “redneck”).
- jive – from jev, to talk disparagingly.
- juke (as in juke joint and jukebox) – from dzug, to misbehave, lead a disorderly life.
- okay – from waw ke, yes (emphatic).
- nyam, yam, yummy – from nyam, to eat.
- poop – from pup, to defecate, said of children.
– Abagond, 2015.
Sources: Mainly “Africanisms in American Culture” (2005) edited by Joseph E. Holloway; “Black Talk” (2000) by Geneva Smitherman; “The Story of English” (1986) by Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil; Wikipedia (2015).
See also:
- Wolof Wikipedia
- Youssou N’Dour & Neneh Cherry: 7 Seconds – sung in English and Wolof
- The libraries of Timbuktu – have books in Wolof
- Mali Empire – Wolof was one of the main languages of the empire
- Ebonics
- Standard English
- Roman alphabet
- Wolof speakers:
- Cheikh Anta Diop
- Fatou N’Diaye
- presumably:
- most likely:
588
Abagond 
Abagond,
“Nyam” is not English
it is and remains a Wolof/Fulani word and the word is not part of the English lexicon.
In Jamaica, we use “Nyam” when speaking patois, not when we speak the queens English
When we wish to say “nyam” in English, we say “eat”
mi nuh nyam from mawning (jamaican patois)
I have not eaten since this morning (English translation)
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^ Is Jamaican patois not an English-based creole language, in other words, a dialect of English?
It would be like how I would classify Hawaiian pidgin.
Tok Pisin in PNG is probably different enough to be categorized as a distinct separate language, but Jamaican patois is still a bit grey area.
The fact that words like “nyam” are not generally used in what is regarded as standard English, does not mean that it is not found in English dialects (eg, in Jamaican patois) and thus have entered into the lexicon of the English language (or one of its sub-dialects). It is simply one of the sub-dialects of English that has retained a good deal of certain African loan words (not unlike, say, Gullah).
Suppose we could have a debate on the difference between dialect and language, and one might argue that Jamaican Patois (or other languages with Wolof loan words and differing sentence structure) is a separate language from English, but we cannot deny that English speakers insert those words in their speech.
To me, Jamaican patois is WAY more similar to standard English (and thus, to me, a dialect of English) than many sub-dialects within larger Chinese dialect families (such as within the Yue, Min or Wu dialect families) are to each other. For example, the Shanghai city dialect and the Ningpo dialect are both part of the Wu family, but differ much more markedly from each other than any pidgin creole of English differs from Standard English from what I can tell.
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Jefe,
in a word – no
because Jamaican patois also uses Spanish to define it’s structure base, as well as words from Taino, and other African languages.
“a fi mi sinting dem”
“a wa mek uno poup so”
(I won’t translate since you say it’s English, so take a guess 🙂
and we could be here all day discussing why I think most scholars are Reluctant to call Jamaican patois a “language”
what you and other foreigners hear when Jamaicans are speaking, is really Jamaicans speaking English with an accent… you are not hearing Jamaican patois.
that’s where the confusion lies
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The bad thing about Jamaican patois, is there is no standardization in spelling or writing– meaning
we all say it correctly, but people spell the same words differently.
so if you look on the internet, people are giving sample phrases, with all kinds of incorrect spellings, like the word – gwan (English: go), you’ll see this spelled all kinds of ways
and don’t get me wrong, for sure, as a British colony, Jamaican patois has English words- modern as well as old English–
but the Jamaican maroons were the gatekeepers of Spanish, Taino, and African languages and culture and the African slaves did not give up their languages either
This is how they able to coordinate their attacks and keep the white slave masters in the dark, but people did have to communicate, so they melded it together with English to do so.
Case in point, here is a video of a Jamaican news story. The news reporter is speaking the queens English and the farmer, is speaking Jamaican patois
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bnZoow63P4)
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Linda,
Actually, I am indeed talking about Jamaican patois, not English with a Jamaican accent. I have heard plenty enough to recognize the difference – I had colleagues / bosses from Jamaica and watched TV shows in Jamaican patois. It is indeed not very intelligible to me, but I do feel that with some exposure, it could become partially or largely intelligible with frequent contact. That is why I suspected it might be classified as a dialect of English, rather than a separate language. Pidgin and creole languages are a bit tricky to classify correctly.
Just because part of the lexicon derives from other languages does not make it a “foreign language” per se to me.
But I fully accept your claim that we should be calling it a different language, rather than a dialect of English, despite what scholars may say. I would classify Tok Pisin in PNG as a separate language, as many scholars do.
Those things are mine (or are for me)?
What made you all “poup” like that? (I am guessing that “poup” might be related to “pup” above, ie, to defecate?)
To me, they still look like English dialects despite these perceived great differences, but of course, I may misunderstand until I listen to it regularly. Maybe I am strange in that way. I think of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese as all dialects of Latin Romance, not to mention all of their sub-dialects.
To me, the different Chinese dialects are really different languages. The Sze-yap dialect and the Hong Kong dialect are both sub-dialects of Cantonese, and I can understand them both, but I think they are just as different from each other as Standard English and Jamaican patois. I can barely decipher related sub-dialects within a greater dialect family, much less between greater dialect families. For example, I was in eastern Guangdong province last week listening to Hakka, and I really struggled to figure out even half of it, even though people tell me that it has a large common lexicon with Cantonese.
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jefe @ What made you all “poup” like that? (I am guessing that “poup” might be related to “pup” above, ie, to defecate?)
Linda says,
I see you had to google for it.. close but not quite — uno (from unu) is not English and neither is “poup”
no, “poup” is not pronounced as Abagond wrote above, it’s a different word and not English…you’re using Abagonds mistake, that’s what many “obroni’s” do
We have many words and phrases that you won’t find on the internet or that are not English, such as “cu de” and we use “a” (to) same as in Spanish, as a personal word
I think many people, such as yourself, hear us speaking frequently in both English and patois, and think they are similar… like we are speaking Spanglish.
Akan language play a strong part in it’s structure and too many African words are used for patois to be just a sub-language of English.
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Also, “poup” in Jamaican patois does not mean “defecate” – it means “fart”
so, I believe our word probably derives from the Wolof word, but I don’t think it’s spelled “pup” because Jamaican patois does not pronounce it that way.
I wrote “poup” that way, because there is no English pronunciation for the Jamaican word and I don’t know how to spell it in the African language it comes from.
In Jamaica, we say “defecate, poop, or sh’t”, to indicate a bowel movement, just like like everyone else because those are an English words
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I meant to say, there is no vowel equivalent that I can think of
to convey how the word “poup” sounds in Jamaican patois, or to give an example in English, and I don’t know how the word is spelled in it’s African form.
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Thank you for your explanations.
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One dead give away when someone is not a native speaker is the use of “to” instead of “a”, it hits the ear wrong.
“Jefe gaan a Merica”.
I have noticed a couple differences between my patois and that of my Jamaican friends. Certain vowels will change which will result in kind of a different overall pitch. To use one of Linda’s lines, “a fi mi sinting dem” would become “a fu mi subbm a nem”. “Ku ya!” will turn into “Ki ya!” for me. Interesting topic, will watch! 😀
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Gen, which island are you from?
I’ve always been interested in how the other islanders speak their patois.
I’ve met a few people from St. Maarten and Curacao who spoke Papiamento and from what some friends have said, it is different from what they speak in Suriname (Sranan)
Many people are like Jefe who think that in the British colonies, patois is just “broken English” – including Caribbean people themselves
when in reality it’s really “broken Twi or Akan” or broken “pick the African language” you want, and insert Spanish, Portuguese, English, French,Taino/Carib, etc
stir and shake
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“That made Wolof the leading African language in what is now the American South by 1700.”
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Oh my blosanskirt god, that has literally blown my mind today!!!
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I have ties to Jamaica too (through parent) and I’m kind of fascinated with linguistics so I definitely explored this topic. I can chime into this discussion! One way to describe Jamaican patois is as a language with grammatical patterns unlike English but with many words derived from English (though some from other languages as well). Really it’s not too different from how English has a ton of COMMON words derived from French (England was once ruled by the Normans) but neither the grammar nor pronunciation are like French. However, Caribbean indigenous (creole) languages are not prestigious languages from a social standpoint so they are viewed negatively, even by people who can speak them. From my experience, many Jamaicans would not hesitate to call patois “broken English”.
English is Jamaica’s only official language so when patois is written informally it usually follows English orthographical conventions. In that case it tends to look a lot more like English than it might sound when spoken. Also Jamaicans speak English and will not talk to people who they don’t expect to understand patois, or people they just met in formal settings, using deep patois. In other words, you probably will not hear some of the things I describe when they are communicating specifically with others and some Jamaicans might rarely speak it at all or don’t speak the deepest varieties. If you think a mere accent is difficult good luck with rapidly spoken patois.
A common word that is used in Jamaican (patois) that is not from English is “oonoo” (oo’s are said short like in “look”). It is a pronoun for the second person plural…like y’all. I can also think of “jook” which means “to stab or puncture”, “makka” which means “thorn or prickle” and “doondoos” meaning “albino”. “Nyam” is definitely a word too and it means “to eat” just like the Wolof. Even the words derived from English may sometimes be hard to catch in deeper patois due to pronunciation differences. For example “break” would be “bruk” (rhymes with luck) and “down” would be “dung” (like English word for feces but it means “down”); “there” becomes “de” (pronounced with a short “e” like in “red”) and “here” becomes “ya”.
Anyway, grammar is probably where the biggest differences lie. Patois uses a different strategy for just about every grammatical construct in English. Verbs aren’t inflected with -ed or -ing or the like so tenses are indicated by words before the verb. In modern English the verbs “to be” and “to do” can be directly negated with a following “not” but other verbs need “do-support”. So “He is not happy” but “He does not drink” not “He drinks not”. In patois all verbs are negated, in the present, with a preceding “no” (pronounced like the Spanish “no”…sometimes written “nuh) and in the past with “neva”. Noun plurals are formed with a following -dem not with the varying strategies of English (such as -s, -es). There is a different linking word for equation, location and instrinsic state. In English we say “He is the policeman”, “He is in London”, “He is tall”. In patois the middle word is different in these three cases. Equation uses “a” so it’s “Im a di policeman”. Location uses “de” so “Im de a London”. Intrinsic state requires no linking word so it’s “Im tall”. The phrase “Oonoo de de?” looks curious but the meaning should be clear by now … maybe. It means “Are you-all there?”.
I researched this some time ago to get some concrete understanding of what is spoken. A linguistic examination of the grammar is not something that is common in the home of the language except among academics. I did some reading on Hatian creole too and a little on Papiamentu as well. What I found extremely fascinating is that, while they get the majority of their words from different languages, (Haitian from French and Papiamentu from Iberian Romance languages, among others) they use the same noun pluralization strategy as Jamaican patois: the word that also means they/them is attached to the noun. In patois it’s “dem” in Haitian Creole it’s “yo” in the Papiamentu it’s “nan”. I wonder why all of them did it the same way?
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@ Linda
Antigua & Barbuda. There are even differences in accents between the two islands. Spending those years in South Florida exposed me to so many accents and being away from home, it made me appreciate Caribbean people more. Meeting people from Nicaragua whose patois was identical to mine and hearing hubby’s side of the family constantly switching between Spanish and patois that sounds quite a bit Jamaican helped me to connect some dots. It also helped me to realize how screwy race is, especially in America.
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“Origin, In patois it’s “dem” in Haitian Creole it’s “yo” in the Papiamentu it’s “nan”. I wonder why all of them did it the same way?I wonder why all of them did it the same way?”
Linda says,
because the grammar structure is African (Akan, Twi, Fula, Igbo etc)-that’s what is the commonality between the islands.
just a few wee corrections 🙂
“oonoo” is spelled: unu (this word is Igbo)
“jook” is spelled: juk (this word is Fula)
“nyam” is Wolof, I not sure about “maka’s” African origin
“ya” is not English, it’s Twi or Igbo
the use of “a” and “no” derives from Spanish… it’s used personally “a fi mi”
and also it means “to” — Mi a go a mi yard
The words of “de, deh,” is Igbo, that’s why it is used the way it is in sentence structure — “unu di deh” or “unu de de”
“de” is incorrectly classified as English, it is not — but people do use “dem” to me “them”, so the confusion is reasonable.
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“Gen @ Meeting people from Nicaragua whose patois was identical to mine and hearing hubby’s side of the family constantly switching between Spanish and patois that sounds quite a bit Jamaican helped me to connect some dots.”
Linda says,
Gen, you just described my household 🙂
so you completely get me when I talk about the connection between the Caribbean and Central America — and I agree, “race” is a screwy concept in our region, so much denial and internalized ignorance
I blame Spain more than I do the British or French
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Antigua – very beautiful island — wham’m sistren
Antiguans patois sounds almost identical to Jamaican patois..
the first time I heard I met someone from there, I asked them what part of Jamaica they were from because I couldn’t place the accent.
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..I love this post for so many reasons, one o’ the biggest being that we are discussing Non-“White”/European languages (for the most part)-and also because being as self-professed (yet still aspiring) polyglot this is right up my proverbial ally!
Sidenote: Interesting how “jook” was mentioned by Origin as “to stab or puncture”, as I was born in the South (Tenn.) and my peepz there have always used that word to describe dancing-especially one in particular where one moves their body in a jerky, sharp type of motion (Ex: “Man, I was jookin’ at the club last night”, etc.). It’s kinda a bit hard to describe on paper, something that you would have to witness one do-since we don’t know each other, you won’t be able to see me do it but you can go to the South and catch other folks doin’ it there though!
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P.S. That Wolof version of “The Lord’s Prayer”.. ❤
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@Linda
Thanks for the info and all the etymologies!
I’m actually aware of the spelling “unu” but because of drawing analogy to “look” in pronunciation, and also because “bruk” is a different vowel sound from “juk” I spelled them “oonoo” and “jook” to aid description of the sound. It actually raises a very interesting question of how exactly to write it down. I learned that there’s a phonemic (one letter, one sound) way of writing that hardly anyone outside academia uses. The spellings don’t look like English and as most Jamaicans are literate in English it’s hard to read quickly even when it makes more technical sense.
@Linda
“because the grammar structure is African (Akan, Twi, Fula, Igbo etc)-that’s what is the commonality between the islands.”
Makes sense. I think it’s quite amazing to see different European languages adapted to African sentence structures in just about the same way. It was really eye-opening for me to see that connection across the different islands.
@Mz.Nikita
That’s very interesting (re jookin’). I know jook/juk can be a “colorful” word for “sex” by extension of the basic meaning. If the dance involves thrusting of the hips that could be the connection. lol
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“I know jook/juk can be a “colorful” word for “sex” by extension of the basic meaning. If the dance involves thrusting of the hips that could be the connection.”
.
Now I know, finally, what is meant by “JOOK/JUK JOINT”… a phrase I’ve heard used in the Black vernacular by Queen Latifa and Tone Loc on the old Killer Joe sound track.
….Shucky Ducky Quack Quack … lol
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On another note, I found something fascinating when I was watching youtube videos on African languages and came upon the 34s-50s mark of this: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U-bk48u6fU).
I know that Jamaicans absolutely say “ih-ih” to mean “No” sometimes. Even the word that means “yes” in the video can trail certain questions. In some English dialects people will say things like “You know everything, yes”? The “yes” is used to imply “right” for emphasis. In that case Jamaicans might say “eeh?” instead of “yes” or “right”.
These people are a different language group than Akan/Twi but Africans from regions further South and closer to the Congo also came to Jamaica. I think there are still people who practice a religion influenced by the Congo region (Kumina) and use words from the African language in ritual settings (something similar happens in Cuba with Santería and Yoruba). So there’s evidence of Congo influence as well.
One of the interesting things about the Caribbean is that so much of the world is packed into relatively small islands that it can be difficult to even separate what came from where. For example, smoking marijuana is heavily associated with Jamaican Rastafarians, who merge African and Judeo-Christian symbols, but the herb is believed to have been introduced to Jamaica by Indian immigrants. That probably explains why Jamaicans commonly call it ganja, which is of Hindi origin (marijuana is Mexican Spanish). Also, there are people in India who ritually grow dreadlocks and smoke. In fact, some Indian deities are depicted with matted hair. There are probably many influences at play in Rastafarianism, just as with patois.
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@ Mz Nikita @ Origin
Wow, thanks. I never drew the connection between the Jamaican jook and the American juke.
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@ Linda
If I stuck with just the Queen’s English, more than just nyam would not make the list. The connection between Wolof and English cannot be understood if you think of English as just the kind you read in a book.
I do regard English-based creoles as forms of English. They do not, for example, seem like foreign languages in the same way that, say, Korean, Wolof or Russian are. I understand, though, that not everyone will agree with that.
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“Origin @ I think there are still people who practice a religion influenced by the Congo region (Kumina) and use words from the African language in ritual settings (something similar happens in Cuba with Santería and Yoruba).”
Linda says,
In Jamaica, Kumina ceremonies are usually associated with wakes/funerals
here is a video of Jamaican folk dancers doing Kumina for tourists
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPjUGBLmv5g)
High schools in Jamaica teach Kumina and other folk music
Kumina and folk dances are performed every year at the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) Festival
FYI, believe it or not, the Congolese came to Jamaica as indentured servants, (like the Chinese and Indians) in 1850s–this was after the end slavery in Jamaica.
The Congolese settled near Maroon territory on the east side of the Island, and the 2 groups influenced each others dance and drum styles.
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there are 2 forms of Kumina – bailo and Myal- both involves singing, dancing, drumming, but with Myal, catching the Holy Ghost is a must
it’s about possession, communing with the spirits, and controlling time:
“One is said to catch ‘Myal’ when possessed by one of the three classes of Gods-sky, earthbound, and ancestral zombies, these last being the most common form of possession. Each god can be recognized by the initiated by the particular dance style exhibited by the possessed, and by songs and drum rhythms to which it responds.”
Jamaica just got back a Kumina drum that was sent to the Smithsonian by “Queenie” queen of Kumina
how it got to America
http://www.folklife.si.edu/talkstory/2014/re-communalization-of-a-jamaican-kumina-drum/
and how it came back to Jamaica
http://jis.gov.jm/ancestral-kumina-drum-repatriated-jamaica/
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Abagond,
I understand but you know how I feel — please don’t give Africa away to Europe needlessly
give Africa it’s due… most native English speakers have never heard the word “nyam”, unless they are from Jamaica or the islands.
so, I was confused as to why it was even put on the list as a part of “English” words, when it is not an English word.
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And I’m loving the look of that Garay script. Hope it becomes more commonly used!
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And yes I agree with everyone. Nyam is definitively not an English word, at best it’s a loanword to English. I had to add it to the computer’s dictionary to stop it self-correcting to Myanmar.
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I didn’t realise how much Wolof impacted American English.
And to add to the phrase about Cheikh Ante Diop, he actually showed that Wolof and Ancient Egyptian shared several words, which sound and mean the same in both languages. There are linguists, including white ones whose works are published by white universities, that suggest the Niger-Congo family originates in the Upper Nile, and therefore Meroitic and Ancient Egyptian are more closely related than many western linguists believe.
I’m sure our resident “expert” on Diop and Wolof, talibmensah, will have something to add.
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Through African/pre-Columbian voyages, African migrations, and African enslavement many African words have survived.
In the illuminating book, Early America Revisited, Ivan Van Sertima says: “Among the Mandinga we have ghana, kane, kani, kanine, ghanin. In pre-Columbian Caribbean we have goana, caona, guani, guanin, guanini. Another word used to refer to gold in the pre-Columbian Caribbean and metal with gold alloys, was, as Las Casas reports, nucay or nozay. This is equally close in sound to the Mande nege [pronounced nuh-GHAY] and nexe [pronounced nuh-KHUH] which stands for any kind of metal ornament or jewelry.” (Page 4)
(Below) Early America Revisited, page 11:
West Africa – Mali (name of a West African empire)
Panama – Sierre de Mali (A mountain range in Darien which corrsponds to the general locations where the Indians of Quareca told Balboa Blacks resided)
West Africa – Mandinga (one of the most numerous ethnic groups in West Africa))
Panama – Mandinga (a town and a Black people who live among the Cuna Indians near San Blas)
West Africa – Ghana (name of a West African empire and name for gold)
Panama – Cana Guana (name of town where an important gold mine was worked)
West Africa – Caragole, Caragoli, Sarakole (a branch of the great Mandinga family)
Panama – Caracole (a pointe of land in southwest Panama)
West Africa – Barbacua (name of port town at the mouth of Senegal), Barbacis, Barbasins (generic name for the Serers who lived in the general area of Barbacua and who were ocean-going fishermen under the authority of the Mandinga)
Panama – Barbacoa (town on the Chagres River)
In the Pacific islands, some African words have survived in the native tongues of the Polynesians.
Jane Resture said: “Foreigners note with interest the great similarity in the various Polynesian dialects. The following are eight words as spoken by eleven of the best-known branches of Polynesia.” http://www.janesoceania.com/samoa_origin/index.htm (page 5)
Samoan – La (sun); Hawaiian – La (sun); Maorian – Ra (sun); Tahitian – Ra (sun); Tongan – La’a (sun); Niuean – La (sun); Rarotongan – La (sun); Marquesan – Oumati (sun); Manahikian – La (sun); Fakaofoan – la (sun)
Interestingly, in ancient Egypt, the sun-deity (neter) was called Ra. Some historians believe that the ancient Egyptians navigated through the Indian Ocean to the eastern side of the Pacific Oceans. ( http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/fall01/navigators/Egyptian_map.gif )On their return, could there have been Egyptian interaction with Polynesians and Australian Aboriginals? Maybe. What’s very interesting is:
Bes, the ancient Egyptian deity
The Maori Tiki god
Female ball jugglers (Ancient Egypt)
Female orange or ball jugglers (Tonga)
Boomerangs (Ancient Egypt)
Boomerangs (Aboriginal Australia)
Note: Some of the pictures may not appear.
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http://symbolica.com/au/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Early-Egyptian-jugglers-art3.jpg (Ancient Egypt)
http://www.egypt-tehuti.org/graphics/juggling.gif (Ancient Egypt)
http://i54.tinypic.com/121g4rt.jpg (Ancient Egypt)
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@res
Hahaha, res, you’re always good for a laugh. Link me some studies and I’ll read them, ok?
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@talibmensah
How’s this for another laugh: the amount of studies to which you’ve linked as support for the bogus claims you made to me: 0
You’re more than welcome to do an iota of research on this topic instead of running your mouth about things you don’t know or worse, suggesting to only rely on university-published works while hypocritically listing scholars whose works neither were published by universities nor addressed the subject matter.
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@Origin & Fan, I know right!? lols @Abagond-my pleasure, it’s really awesome how so much is learned both ways (via your posts, and the connection of the shared history/legacies that a lot o’ us on here tend to relate with one another) in so many ways!
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@ Pumpkin
“omitting the present tense verb of To Be is also found in Arabic, like for example she is beautiful is hiya jamilah (but it would be in arabic script), there is no “is” it’s just “she beautiful,” but the”is” is implicated.”
In Arabic that is the case only in present tense. Does anybody know if Wolof omits the “to be” in past tense as well?
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@Mz.Nikita
Yeah. I appreciate the exchange of information in topics like this.
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@res
Thanks for not answering the question, res, deflection seems your greatest skill?
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You didn’t ask me a question.
And it’s no surprise to hear another hypocritical statement from a hypocrite who doesn’t answer questions.
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Yeah, res, I asked you for other articles or studies to check out. Any recs? Jesus Christ…
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No you didn’t. Reread what you wrote: “Link me some studies ”
I’ll respond to you when you’ve finally answered the many questions I’ve asked you on other posts.
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@ Linda
I updated the post so that it no longer claims nyam as “English”.
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In the Encyclopeadia of African Literature edited by Simon Gikani, Samba Diop writes that Wolof literature presents an interesting paradox. On the one hand, Wolof is relatively old: many texts have been written in Wolof language for more than two hundred years. On the other hand much of Wolof has been translated into French. The literature written in Wolof by Muslim clerics finds its inspiration from religion, namely Islam. And the texts from a Wolof corpus, translated into French reflects a secular bent.
By reviving ancient Wolof epics and writing them into Wolof language, Senegalese writers are providing models for younger and aspiring authors who seek to explore writing in Wolof, thus giving it a place it deserves.
Boris Boubakar Diop has published in his first novel in Wolof: “Doomi golo” ( The She-Monkey and the Little Ones) in 2002.
This process of fully and creatively writing in Wolof is accompanied by a full recovery of the African personality, sense of worth and purpose, dignity, freedom and liberty, all of which were overshadowed by the colonial experience.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is right and on to something when he suggests that the African writes in his native language.
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I am so old skool when it comes to rap and hip hop, it is Rappers Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang that I last enjoyed before it was all about misogyny and bling and swearing.
My ears pricked, though,, and picked up the tail-end of a documentary recently (in tandem with this post) about Senegalese underground hip hop and rap artists, rapping in Wolof. The hip hop is about social change, education and empowerment. The artists address important issues and their music has much influence in political issues facing Senegal. I believe that they were, amongst other opposing voices, instrumental in the downfall of the president, Abdoulaye Wade in 2012.
I love Youssou N’Dour and Baaba Mal’s music. Doudou Ndiaye Rose was a master drummer and one of Africa’s greatest musicians.
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