- Symbols and Pronunciation
- Some Starter Nouns
- Some Starter Adjectives
- Adjective Placement
- Some Starter Verbs
- Gender
- Quantity
- Verbal Nouns
- Adjectival Nouns
- Articles
- Personal Pronouns
- Present Transitive and Intransitive
- Equatives
- Direct Object and Reflexive Pronouns
- Possessive Pronouns
- This, these, that, those
- Indefinite Pronouns 1
- Indefinite Pronouns 2
- Present Presentatives
- Question Markers 1
- Question Markers 2
- Relative Pronouns and Constructions
- Comparing Things
- [Noun] is [adjective]
- Location
- Past Tense Transitive
- Past Tense Intransitive
- Imperative
- To Have
- To Like
- If-Then Statements
- Present Progressive
- Perfect
- Future
- The Subjunctive Mood
- Turning a Statement Into a Question
- Declarative Statements
- Ka Review
- Prepositions
- OClock
- Introducing Yourself
- Song
- Interjections
- More Emphatics
- Want
- Modals 1
- -len, -nen, -nin
Lessons
Ali Farka Touré Sings Diaraby
Now we are going to learn a song, found here.
Starter Vocabulary
- kɛr'i : contraction of kɛra i
- jarabi : passion, sweetheart
- __ dùn : as for __
- bi : variant of bɛ
- lě : Jula variant of dě (emphatic marker)
- ba : mother
- fa : father
- kan : upon
- kà furu : to marry
- kà ko : to say
- fɛn : chose
- kà dimi : to get angry
- kà kasi : to cry
- kà haminako : to worry
- koso : variant of kosɔn
- chérie : (French) sweetheart
The Lyrics
- Mun kɛr'i la n jarabi ? Mun kɛr'i la, ne dùn bi e lě fɛ.
- What happened to you my love? What happened to you? Yet it is you that I love.
- I ba lě kan, kana furu n ma, ko fɛɛn tɛ ne fɛ, ne dùn bi e lě fɛ.
- It is your mother who tells you not to marry me because I have nothing, but it is you that I love.
- Teri lě kan, kana furu n ma, ko fɛɛn tɛ ne fɛ, ne dùn bi e lě fɛ.
- It is your friend who tells you not to marry me because I have nothing, but it is you that I love.
- I fa lě kan, kana furu n ma, ko fɛɛn tɛ ne fɛ, ne dùn bi e lě fɛ.
- It is your father who tells you not to marry me because I have nothing, but it is you that I love.
- E kana dimi, e kana kasi, e kana haminako jarabi koso.
- Don't get angry, don't cry, don't worry because of love.
- Mun kɛr'i la n ma chérie ? Mun kɛr'i la, ne dùn bi e lě fɛ.
- What happened to you, my darling? What happened to you? You're the one I love.
Take-away:
- There are a lot of dialectal variations in Bambara, Jula and Maninka. Thus as you get better at Bambara, you'll have to keep using your brain to make out what people are writing. In fact, to simplify this lesson, I changed the spelling of some of the words from the original youtube video, like ba instead of baa and haminako instead of haminko, among others. But the video still has correct variants. Notice also the name of the song, Diaraby, is a variation of the spelling of jarabi.
- Also, check out ZANGA School for more great lessons and lyric-videos.