[bubudi]

I'll check my notes tonight, if I don't post something by tomorrow, start giving me hell.

ok, you asked for it

[Carl]

Ok, I've looked for them twice now...

GRRRRR.

The problem is that I have about 8 - 3 x 5 index cards with songs on them. Small enough to hide under a paperback book.

They were not in the two places I expected them to be, so now I'm down to a random search!

I have a big spring cleaning project in the studio, starting in a couple of weeks, they "should" show up then...

I hate loosing things!

C

[bubudi]

no need to bother, carl

kuku ee, ni kara boro
ee
kuku ee, ni kara boro
ni bara frontori ee

Kuku, ee, if the moon appears
I will play the drum for my friend

[Carl]

Thanks bubudi,

I will still bother because I had about 4 or 5 songs together, and I can find any of them!!!!

I don't remember the moon reference, but the "I will play the drum for my friend" sounds right. He might have expressed it slightly differently at the class I was at...?

Do you have a word to word translation? I think "bara" was "drum" am I right?

If you or anyone else has other songs with translations, I'd love to start discussing them.

C

[bubudi]

carl, word for word translation:

ni karo boro = if moon come out
ni bara foron'to r'i = then drum play i will for you

[Carl]

B-

Does it break down like this?

ni = if/then
karo = moon
Bara = drum
boro = come out

Now I thought "fo" would be some form of play, so fofon'to would be "I will play"?

finally r'i would be "for you"?

how did I do?

C

[bubudi]

yes, carl. that's how i put it.
check with a native malinke speaker about the 'foron to'. my knowledge of future tense is very poor (anyone else here able to comment about this phrase?) but r'i seems to be a contraction of ro (for/at/to) and i (=you).

i love all the different uses for 'ee'. it's used quite a lot in krio and susu as well. it basically means 'yo', 'hey', 'really', 'you know' or 'get out of town'

[tanamasi]

hi!
nice discussion & thanks for sharing the lyrics of kuku - de maoka, right?

does anyone have access to a native speaker of malinke? i am trying to figure out what the appropriate spelling and word by word meaning for 'basa ti mbara ba' could be (that is to say, 'the head of the gecko', used to refer to the call of the dunun rhythms). unfortunately, my sources never said anything about the spelling (or the word by word meaning).

by looking at dictionaries, i can see that 'basa' is lizard, 'ti' indicates possession, like our preposition 'of' and then i am somewhat lost.

i cannot find 'mbara ba'. the most meaningful thing i come up with is that 'bara' is gourd/calabash. i could understand that for animals they may use calabash to mean head (particularly of an animal).... but it is a little bit odd. does anybody know anything about the meaning of 'mbara ba'?

of course, there might be some small variations, the 'm' might not necessarily be there or there might be variation with the exact sound that the 'r' corresponds to, but I could not find anything in dictionaries, even when allowing for such flexibility. any thoughts anyone?

thanks a lot for any help
tanamasi

[Carl]

Tanamasi,

Ok, you are about to send me to my notes....

Famoudou talked about this at a class I was at a few years ago.
I am in the midst of a notes reorganization, if I find it I will post it here!

C

[bubudi]

we had a decent response but it would be nice to see folks going to the respective language threads and practicing and sharing knowledge of the language. the krio thread is a good one to check out because it's the most established, and the language is the easiest and very fun to learn. it can help get your head get around west african forms of expression, making it easier to pick up one of the other languages. if you follow the thread you will see how an american learned krio through this thread (supplemented with social media and youtube videos) and his krio has improved dramatically.

the various language threads are:
krio language
maninka / malinke
bambara language
susu language