In this episode of Basic Bambara the podcast you'll learn what to say after "hello" and how to greet multiple people at the same time.
Support
If you like Basic Bambara—the pocast! consider supporting us so we can make more episodes!
Transcript
Note: This episode was produced for the ear and designed to be listened to. It was transcribed by Coleman and may contain errors.
Coleman: Aw ni ce! Aw dansɛ! Welcome to episode two of Basic Bambara, a project from An ka taa, my initiative to create media and resources for speakers and learners
of Manding. Ok, I’m Coleman and I’m here with the newest Bambara student who we all uh met last week. I tɔgɔ ko di? What’s your name?
Cinzia: Cinzia.
Coleman: Anhaan. Cinzia! So last time we talked about greetings. We talked about the four ways that you could greet at different times of the day, right?
Cinzia: Right.
Coleman: And we also talked about an all-purpose greeting. Do you remember what it was?
Cinzia: I ni ce.
Coleman: Nba! Ok. And what happens if I greet you? I ni ce!
Cinzia: Nse!
I ni ce!
Coleman: Nba! Perfect! Alright. But today we are gonna talk about greetings in a more extended form. So, in general, greetings in West Africa are not as simple as "- Hello - Hello". There’s gonna be a lot of back and forth and asking
questions. And so today we’re gonna talk about two things. We’re gonna talk about how to do more extended greetings. And we’re also gonna talk about how to greet groups of multiple people. Ok, so the first thing that we’re gonna jump into is
these extended greetings. So last time we covered the back and forth that happens when you initially greet someone. So, for instance, Cinzia, how would you greet me in the morning?
Cinzia: I ni sɔgɔma.
Coleman: Nba! And then I’m gonna respond after that nba with i ni sɔgɔma. And so that’s the same thing that we’re gonna use for the other three times of the day. So we had i ni tile for midday, i ni wula
for afternoon, and i ni su for night time. But, normally people are gonna greet you with those greetings and then once they respond, they’re gonna use this extended greeting question, which is gonna mean something like "Have you spent
the night in peace?" or "Have you spent the day in peace?" And to do so, there’s a kind of similar sentence you’ll use for both. And they both gonna start with the word hɛɛrɛ. Hɛɛrɛ means ‘peace’ . So, say it with me, Cinzia.
Hɛɛrɛ.
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ.
Coleman: Anhaan. Ok, so hɛɛrɛ means ‘peace’ and it gets used in questions like this: if you’re gonna use it in the morning, people are gonna greet you, they’re gonna say i ni sɔgɔma, and how do you respond?
Cinzia: Nse! I ni sɔgɔma!
Coleman: Anhaan. Now, I could ask you or you could ask me, hɛɛrɛ sira?
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ sira?
Coleman: Anhaan. So, as one single question it’s gonna be hɛɛrɛ sira?
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ sira?
Coleman: So hɛɛrɛ sira literally means ‘Has peace passed the night?’ We’re not gonna go into what exactly sira means. It’s a verbal form. At this point in our learning, we just need to know that the expression hɛɛrɛ sira is the
equivalent of asking "Did you have a good night?", "Did you spend the night in peace?" And that will get used only in the morning. So anytime that anyone greets you i ni sɔgɔma, you’ll use it. So, for instance, Cinzia, if I greet you
right now, i ni sɔgɔma…
Cinzia: Nse! I ni sɔgɔma!
Coleman: Nba! Hɛɛrɛ sira? Ok, but you don’t know how to respond to that question yet. And, how would we do so? It’s really simple. That same word that we already learned, hɛɛrɛ, which meant ‘peace’, you’re gonna use that as your response. So
when someone asks, Have you spent the night in peace?” You actually just answer, Peace”. So let’s try it again. So if I greet you in the morning, and I say, I ni sɔgɔma…
Cinzia: Nse! I ni sɔgɔma.
Coleman: Nba! Hɛɛrɛ sira? [then] how do you respond?
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ.
Coleman: Nba! Alright, so that applies in general. The other thing that you need to know, when people use this extended form, is sometimes people will jump straight into it. So instead of having that back and forth of, "- I ni sɔgɔma - Nba! I
ni sɔgɔma", you might actually have people skip the second i ni sɔgɔma. So, for example, Cinzia, greet me as if it were in the morning.
Cinzia: I ni sɔgɔma.
Coleman: Nba! Hɛɛrɛ sira?
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ!
Coleman: Nba! So you see there, I skipped the i ni sɔgɔma and went straight into it. That’s something to look out for that you might hear, in particular in Jula-speaking areas as opposed to Bambara-speaking areas. Ok, so now we
know how to use that extended form for greetings in the morning, but a similar form will be used for all the other forms: tile, wula and su. Midday, afternoon and night time. For all three of those, it’s very simply
because you’re gonna use the same form. And that question is gonna be: hɛɛrɛ–which you already know, which means ‘peace’-- tilenna? So hɛɛrɛ tilenna?
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ tilenna?
Coleman: Anhaan, so that question hɛɛrɛ tilenna will get used with all three of the other times of day. So, for instance, Cinzia, if you greet me, at night, what will you say?
Cinzia: I ni su!
Coleman: Nba! I ni su! And then, I could ask you hɛɛrɛ tilenna? And how would you respond?
Cinzia: Nse! Hɛɛrɛ!
Coleman: Anhaan. You can also just jump straight into hɛɛrɛ or just like you did, you can say Nse! Hɛɛrɛ! So that nba and nse is a call and response that shows up a lot in greetings.
You can kind of get a feel for it just by listening to people, [and] how they normally greet you. Alright, so let’s do another example. If you greet me in the afternoon, then how would you do it?
Cinzia: I ni wula!
Coleman: Nba! I ni wula! Hɛɛrɛ tilenna?
Cinzia: Hɛɛrɛ!
Coleman: Nba! Alright, so now we’ve covered the way to do extended greetings–that is, what comes after the fact of just saying hello. Now we’re gonna jump into how you greet multiple people. So in general, greetings will always have that
form of i, meaning ‘you’ singular, plus ni and then a time of day or an activity, some noun. But what happens if you’re greeting a larger group of people? In that case you need to change that word i to a plural form.
And that form is gonna be: aw.
Cinzia: Aw.
Coleman: Anhaan. Alright, so Cinzia, hearing what I just said, if you wanted to greet a group of people at midday, what would you say?
Cinzia: Aw ni tila.
Coleman: Anhaan. Almost, but it’s not tila but tile.
Cinzia: Aw ni tile.
Coleman: Nba! So the response when someone greets a large group of people is gonna be the exact same actually for each invidual that’s in the group that is being greeted. So when Cinzia greets a group, aw ni tile, I’m a part of
that group and I simply respond the same way I would as if she were greeting me, all on my own. Ok, so that will apply to all the different times of day, whether it’s sɔgɔma, tile, wula or su. And to
ce, so you can say, aw ni ce, which will just be an all-purpose form of saying ‘hello’ to a group of people or, like we covered last time, a way of saying ‘thank you’ to a whole group of people.
Ayiwa! So we covered the
four ways to greet people at different times in the first episode. And now you know how to do an extended greeting that goes on top of it. And how to greet either one person or multiple people. Now we’re gonna move onto a question to a question
that we actually got from someone who listened to our very first pilot episode. Uh, Cinzia, what was the question since you yourself actually had it, [but] we just didn’t put it in the show.
Cinzia: Well, they actually asked us why you are often saying anhaan
[as] a way of responding?
Coleman: Anhaan! Like that you mean?
Cinzia: Yes!
Coleman: Anhaan! Alright so that anhaan, even though I’m generally speaking in English [here] to teach Bambara, I kinda picked it up as a tic. And it’s just because in Manding if you got anhaan it’s a way of saying
‘Yeah!’ So when I’m doing that, I’m actually just acknowledging the fact that you’ve said something correctly or I’m acknowledging that you’ve said something to me. So it might sound a little funny if you think of it as an English thing, but it’s
more of a Manding thing that I picked up when I’m teaching. Alright, I hope that makes sense! If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to us: ankataa.com. There’s a contact form, we’d love to answer any questions that people have. Ayiwa!
Thanks for listening to this episode of Basic Bambara. If you liked it, think about sharing
this episode or writing a review on whatever platform you use to listen to your podcasts. Our next episode is gonna focus on another part of greetings. I know that seems like a lot about greetings, but I promise it is super useful since greetings
are so important for everyday interactions in West Africa. Alright, Cinzia? How can we thank everyone for listening?
Cinzia: Aw ni ce!
Coleman: Nba! Alright, so we say to everyone aw ni ce! K’an bɛn!