Ndank Ndank

I’ve got less than 7 weeks left of this adventure and I’m starting to worry I won’t get to all the stuff I still want to do before my time’s up. There’s still a lot more of Dakar I want to explore, trinkets to buy, food to try. And I can’t go home until I’ve completely mastered Wolof!

Speaking of Wolof, it’s time to admit that it’s been months and I haven’t mastered it yet. Even in spite of all the Senegalese people telling me on a regular basis how easy it is. Okay, so maybe it’s not like learning Chinese, but still.

One thing I don’t think our program stressed enough to us before coming is how essential Wolof is for foreigners living in Dakar. I can’t tell you how many instant friends I’ve made just by greeting them with Assalamalekum and Nanga def? Throw in a few “jàmm rekk”s and an “alxamdulilay” and you’re golden. They love that you’re trying to understand their language, and coming from a white --typically French-speaking—person, it’s unexpected. It’s also important to know what people are saying about you. Or how they’re planning to rip you off at the market. Since my Wolof comprehension has improved, I’ve heard numerous people say, “She understands Wolof, we can’t talk in Wolof.” You get the best taxi fares when you can haggle completely in Wolof and you’re more likely to get change for your 10 000 francs in real money (as opposed to gum or mints) if you warmed them up first with some Wolof greetings.

Still, it doesn’t always work; vendors have thrown me for a loop before, asking me a few questions in their native language- Sereer, Peulh, Diola, Mandjak. As I try to figure out what they possibly could’ve just asked me in Wolof (ie; the wrong language), they’ll smile and say, “What? You don’t speak [insert language here]?”

I feel like my comprehension has come a long way, and I’m pretty comfortable with basic everyday phrases; greetings, “I’m going to take a shower,” “It’s hot/cold out” etc… I’m never completely lost when two Senegalese people are having a conversation. That is to say, I’m only mostly lost. My vocabulary is very limited and we’re still learning grammar; Wolof is not like any language I’ve ever tried to learn.

The weirdest thing from a romance language perspective is that in Wolof, you conjugate pronouns instead of verbs. This makes learning verbs pretty easy- there’s only one form of every verb, and it hardly ever changes. What do change are the I, you, he/she, we, they’s depending on the context.

I’ll try to give some examples using only the first person, to explain what I mean:

Maangi dem Dakar = I went to Dakar. (presentative)
Dem naa Dakar = I went to Dakar (completive, non-emphatic)
Dakar laa dem = It is to Dakar that I went (object emphasis)
Dama dem Dakar = I went to Dakar/ What I did was go to Dakar (explicative/verb emphasis)
Man, maa dem Dakar = It is me, who went to Dakar (subject emphasis)

Notice that not only does the pronoun change, but the word order in the sentence changes. To make this an incompleted you would add y to the end of maangi, laa, Dama, or maa (Maangiy dem Dakar = I am/will go to Dakar). Naa is only for completed actions or states of being.

Another quick example is negation (present tense):
Bëgguma ndox. = I don’t want water.
Bëgguloo mburu = You don’t want bread.
Bëggul nelow = He doesn’t want to sleep.
Bëgguñu jàng = They don’t want to study.
Etc…

The negative pronoun attaches to the end of the verb it’s negating.

Oh, and there’s so much more! But I won’t bore you. I’ll leave you with the single most important phrase any learner of Wolof could possibly know:

Ndank ndank mooy jàpp golo ci ñaay.

It means “Slowly (softly/carefully) one catches the monkey in the brush,” and it’s a proverb close to ‘slow and steady wins the race’ or something. Every Senegalese person ever knows this proverb, and usually, you only have to start it and they’ll finish it for you. I use it to mean that I don’t understand every single word in the Wolof language, but I’m getting there. Slowly but surely. Slowly.

Back from Casamance (Kaasamaans in Wolof)

The first batch of Casamance pictures are up here. We had a fantastic vacation and I've started some mini-comics to illustrate all the fun we had. I've been working on those instead of homework in the evenings, go figure. Coming soon!

Second part here!