Wolof_language

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Wolof language

3.5 million (second language) Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/, wolof entry [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=wol here]

fam2=Atlantic-Congo fam3=Senegal - Guinea fam4=Senegambian fam5=Fula-Wolof agency=CLAD (Centre de linguistique appliquée de Dakar) iso2=wol ld1=Wolof ld2=Gambian Wolof}} Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the ethnic group of the Wolof people. Like the neighboring language Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Unlike most other languages of Sub-Saharan Africa, Wolof is not a tonal language. Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal, spoken not only by members of the Wolof ethnic group (approximately 40 percent of the population) but also by most other Senegalese. Wolof dialects may vary between countries (Senegal and the Gambia) and the rural and urban areas. "Dakar-Wolof", for instance, is an urban mixture of Wolof, French, Arabic, and even a little English - spoken in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

"Wolof" is the standard spelling, and is a term that may also refer to the Wolof ethnic group or to things originating from Wolof culture or tradition. As an aid to pronunciation, some older French publications use the spelling "Ouolof"; for the same reason, some English publications adopt the spelling "Wollof", predominantly referring to Gambian Wolof. Prior to the 20th Century, the forms "Volof", and "Olof" were used.

Unlike most African languages, Wolof has had some influence on Western European languages. Banana is a Wolof word in English, and the English word yam is believed to be derived from Wolof/Fula nyami, "to eat food." Hip or hep (e.g., jazz musicians' now cliched "hip cat") is believed by many etymologists to derive from the Wolof hepicat, "one who has his eyes open".Holloway, Joseph E. [http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_languages.htm The Impact of African Languages on American English]. [http://www.slaveryinamerica.org Slavery in America]. Retrieved on 2006.10.05. Some etymologists reject this, however, and in late 2007 adopted the pun "to cry Wolof" as a general dismissal or belittlement of etymologies they believe to be based on "superficial similarities" rather than documented attribution.e.g. Grant Barrett, "[http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/grantbarrett/humdinger_of_a_bad_irish_scholar/ Humdinger of a Bad Irish Scholar]", in "The Lexicographer's Rules", 2007.11.09

Geographical distribution

Wolof is spoken by more than 10 million people and about 40 percent (approximately 5 million people) of Senegal's population speak Wolof as their mother tongue. Increased mobility, and especially the growth of the capital Dakar, created the need for a common language: today, an additional 40 percent of the population speak Wolof as a second or acquired language. In the whole region from Dakar to Saint-Louis, and also west and southwest of Kaolack, Wolof is spoken by the vast majority of the people. Typically when various ethnic groups in Senegal come together in cities and towns, they speak Wolof. It is therefore spoken in almost every regional and departmental capital in Senegal. The official language of Senegal is French.

In The Gambia, about 15 percent (approximately 200,000 people) of the population speak Wolof as a first language, but Wolof has a disproportionate influence because of its prevalence in Banjul, The Gambia's capital, where 50 percent of the population use it as a first language. In Serrekunda, The Gambia's largest town, although only a tiny minority are ethnic Wolofs, approximately 90 percent of the population speaks and/or understands Wolof. Wolof is increasingly the mother tongue of young people of mixed ethnicity. Overall, Wolof is gaining influence in The Gambia, partly due to its association with the popular mbalax music and Senegalese popular culture. In Banjul and Serrekunda, Wolof has gained lingua franca status and is already more widely spoken than Mandinka. The official language of the Gambia is English; Mandinka (40 percent), Wolof (15 percent) and Fula (15 percent) are as yet not used in formal education.

In Mauritania, about 7 percent (approximately 185,000 people) of the population speak Wolof. There, the language is used only around the southern coastal regions. Mauritania's official language is Arabic; French is used as lingua franca.

Example phrases

This paragraph uses the exact orthography developed by the CLAD institute, which can be found in Arame Fal's dictionary (see bibliography below). For the literal translation, please note that Wolof does not have tenses in the sense of the Indo-European languages; rather, Wolof marks aspect and focus of an action. The literal translation given in the table below is an exact word-by-word translation in the original word order, where the meanings of the individual words are separated by dashes.

To listen to the pronunciation of some Wolof words, click [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wolof_pronunciation here]

The previous greeting is not Wolof - it is Arabic (used by Arabic speakers), but is commonly used.

(* Gambian Wolof spells an after word-ending doubled consonants )

Wolof	English	Literal translation into English
(As)salaamaalekum ! Response: Maalekum salaam !	Hello! Response: Hello!	(Arabic) peace be with you Response: and with you be peace
Na nga def ? / Naka nga def ? / Noo def? Response: Maa ngi fi rekk	How do you do? / How are you doing? Response: I am fine	How - you (already) - do Response: I here - be - here - only
Naka mu ? Response: Maa ngi fi	What's up? Response: I'm fine	How is it? Response: I'm here
Numu demee? / Naka mu demee?/ Response: Nice / Mu ngi dox	How's it going? Response: Fine / Nice / It's going	How is it going? Response: Nice (from English) / It's walking (going)
Lu bees ? Response: Dara (beesul)	What's new? Response: Nothing (is new)	What is it that is new? Response: Nothing/something (is not new)
Ba beneen (yoon).	See you soon (next time)	Until - other - (time)
Jërëjëf	Thanks / Thank you	It was worth it
Waaw	Yes	Yes
Déedéet	No	No
Fan la ... am ?	Where is a ...?	Where - that which is - ... - existing/having
Fan la fajkat am ?	Where is a physician/doctor?	Where - the one who is - heal-maker - existing/having
Fan la ... nekk ?	Where is the ...?	Where - it which is - ... - found?
Ana ...?	Where is ...?	Where is ...?
Ana loppitaan bi?	Where is the hospital?	Where is - hospital - the?
Noo tudd(a)* ? / Naka nga tudd(a) ? Response: ... laa tudd(a) / Maa ngi tudd(a) ...	What is your name? Response: My name is ....	What you (already) - being called? Response: ... I (objective) - called / I am called ...

Orthography and pronunciation

Note: Phonetic transcriptions are printed between brackets [] following the rules of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The Latin-based orthography of Wolof in Senegal was set by government decrees between 1971 and 1985. The language institute "Centre de linguistique appliquée de Dakar" (CLAD) is widely acknowledged as an authority when it comes to spelling rules for Wolof.

Wolof is most often written in this orthography, in which phonemes have a clear one-to-one correspondence to graphemes.

(A traditional Arabic-based transcription of Wolof called Wolofal dates back to the pre-colonal period and is still used by many people.)

The first syllable of words is stressed; long vowels are pronounced with more time, but are not automatically stressed, as they are in English.

Vowels

Wolof adds diacritic marks to the vowel letters to distinguish between open and closed vowels. Example: "o" [?] is open like English "often", "ó" [o] is closed similar to the o-sound in English "most" (but without the u-sound at the end). Similarly, "e" [?] is open like English "get", while "é" [e] is closed similar to the sound of "a" in English "gate" (but without the i-sound at the end).

Single vowels are short, geminated vowels are long, so Wolof "o" [?] is short and pronounced like "ou" in English "sought", but Wolof "oo" [?:] is long and pronounced like the "aw" in English "sawed". If a closed vowel is long, the diacritic symbol is usually written only above the first vowel, e.g. "óo", but some sources deviate from this CLAD standard and set it above both vowels, e.g. "óó".

The very common Wolof letter "ë" is pronounced [?], like "a" in English "sofa".

Consonants

The characters (U+014B) Latin small letter eng "?" and (U+014A) Latin capital letter eng "?" are used in the Wolof alphabet. They are pronounced like "ng" in English "hang".

The characters (U+00F1) Latin small letter n with tilde "ñ" and (U+00D1) Latin capital letter n with tilde "Ñ" are also used. They are pronounced like the same letter in Spanish "señor".

"c" is between "t" in English "fortune" and "ch" in English "choose", while "j" is between "d" in English "Indian" and "j" in "June". "x" is like "ch" in German "Bach", while "q" is like "c" in English "cool". "g" is always like "g" in English "garden", and "s" is always like "s" in English "stop". "w" is as in "wind" and "y" as in "yellow".

Grammar

Notable characteristics

Pronoun conjugation instead of verbal conjugation

In Wolof, verbs are unchangeable words which cannot be conjugated. To express different tenses or aspects of an action, the personal pronouns are conjugated - not the verbs. Therefore, the term temporal pronoun has become established for this part of speech.

Example: The verb dem means "to go" and cannot be changed; the temporal pronoun maa ngi means "I/me, here and now"; the temporal pronoun dinaa means "I am soon / I will soon / I will be soon". With that, the following sentences can be built now: Maa ngi dem. "I am going (here and now)." - Dinaa dem. "I will go (soon)."

Conjugation with respect to aspect instead of tense

In Wolof, tenses like present tense, past tense and future tense are just of secondary importance, they even play almost no role. It is the aspect of an action from the speaker's point of view, which is of crucial importance. The most important aspect is, whether an action is perfective, i.e. finished, or imperfective, i.e. still going on, from the speaker's point of view, regardless, whether the action itself takes place in the past, present or future. Other aspects are, whether an action takes place regularly, whether an action will take place for sure, and whether an action wants to emphasize the role of the subject, predicate or object of the sentence. As a result, conjugation is not done by tenses, but by aspects. Nevertheless, the term temporal pronoun became usual for these pronouns to be conjugated, although aspect pronoun might be the better term.

Example: The verb dem means "to go"; the temporal pronoun naa means "I already/definitely", the temporal pronoun dinaa means "I am soon / I will soon / I will be soon"; the temporal pronoun damay means "I (am) regularly/usually". Now the following sentences can be constructed: Dem naa. "I go already / I have already gone." - Dinaa dem. "I will go soon / I am just going to go." - Damay dem. "I usually/regularly/normally go."

If the speaker absolutely wants to express that an action took place in the past, this is not done by conjugation, but by adding the suffix -(w)oon to the verb. (Please bear in mind, that in a sentence the temporal pronoun is already used in a conjugated form besides the past marker.)

Example: Demoon naa Ndakaaru. "I already went to Dakar."

Action verbs versus static verbs and adjectives

Consonant harmony

Gender

Wolof lacks gender-specific pronouns: there is one word encompassing the English 'he', 'she', and 'it'. The descriptors bu góor (male / masculine) or bu jigéen (female / feminine) are often added to words like xarit, 'friend', and rakk, 'younger sibling' in order to indicate the person's gender.

For the most part, Wolof does not have noun concord ("agreement") classes as in Bantu or Romance languages. But the markers of noun definiteness (usually called "definite articles" in grammatical terminology) do agree with the noun they modify. There are at least ten articles in Wolof, some of them indicating a singular noun, other a plural noun. In "City Wolof" (the type of Wolof spoken in big cities like Dakar), the article -bi is often used as a pro-article when the actual article is not known.

Any loan noun from French or English uses - bi - - butik-bi, xarit-bi, 'the boutique, the friend'

Most Arabic or religious terms use - ji -- jumma-ji, jigéen-ji, 'the mosque, the girl'

Nouns referring to person typically use -ki -- nit-ki, nit-ñi, 'the person, the people'

Miscellaneous articles: si, gi, wi, mi, li, yi.

Numerals

Cardinal numbers

The Wolof numeral system is based on the numbers "5" and "10". It is extremely regular in formation, comparable to Chinese. Example: benn "one", juróom "five", juróom-benn "six" (literally, "five-one"), fukk "ten", fukk ak juróom benn "sixteen" (literally, "ten and five one"), ñett-fukk "thirty" (literally, "three-ten"). Alternately, "thirty" is fanweer, which is roughly the number of days in a lunar month (literally "fan" is day and "weer" is moon.)

0	tus / neen / zéro [French] / sero / dara ["nothing"]
1	benn
2	ñaar / yaar
3	ñett / ñatt / yett / yatt
4	ñeent / ñenent
5	juróom
6	juróom-benn
7	juróom-ñaar
8	juróom-ñett
9	juróom-ñeent
10	fukk
11	fukk ak benn
12	fukk ak ñaar
13	fukk ak ñett
14	fukk ak ñeent
15	fukk ak juróom
16	fukk ak juróom-benn
17	fukk ak juróom-ñaar
18	fukk ak juróom-ñett
19	fukk ak juróom-ñeent
20	ñaar-fukk
26	ñaar-fukk ak juróom-benn
30	ñett-fukk / fanweer
40	ñeent-fukk
50	juróom-fukk
60	juróom-benn-fukk
66	juróom-benn-fukk ak juróom-benn
70	juróom-ñaar-fukk
80	juróom-ñett-fukk
90	juróom-ñeent-fukk
100	téeméer
101	téeméer ak benn
106	téeméer ak juróom-benn
110	téeméer ak fukk
200	ñaari téeméer
300	ñetti téeméer
400	ñeenti téeméer
500	juróomi téeméer
600	juróom-benni téeméer
700	juróom-ñaari téeméer
800	juróom-ñetti téeméer
900	juróom-ñeenti téeméer
1000	junni / junne
1100	junni ak téeméer
1600	junni ak juróom-benni téeméer
1945	junni ak juróom-ñeenti téeméer ak ñeent-fukk ak juróom
1969	junni ak juróom-ñeenti téeméer ak juróom-benn-fukk ak juróom-ñeent
2000	ñaari junni
3000	ñetti junni
4000	ñeenti junni
5000	juróomi junni
6000	juróom-benni junni
7000	juróom-ñaari junni
8000	juróom-ñetti junni
9000	juróom-ñeenti junni
10000	fukki junni
100000	téeméeri junni
1000000	tamndareet / million

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers are formed by adding the ending - éélu (pronounced ay-lu) to the cardinal number. For example two is ñaar and second is ñaaréélu

The one exception to this system is "first?, which is bu njëk (or the adapted French word premier: përëmye)

1st	bu njëk
2nd	ñaaréélu
3rd	ñettéélu
4th	ñeentéélu
5th	juróoméélu
6th	juróom-bennéélu
7th	juróom-ñaaréélu
8th	juróom-ñettéélu
9th	juróom-ñeentéélu
10th	fukkéélu

Personal pronouns

Temporal pronouns

Conjugation of the temporal pronouns

(Present Continuous)

(Past tense for action verbs or present tense for static verbs)

(Emphasis on Object)

(Emphasis on Verb)

(Emphasis on Subject)

(I am+ Verb+ -ing)

(I + past tense action verbs or present tense static verbs)

(I will ... / future)

(Puts the emphasis on the Object of the sentence)

(Indicates a habitual or future action)

(Puts the emphasis on the Verb or the state 'condition' of the sentence)

(Indicates a habitual or future action)

(Puts the emphasis on the Subject of the sentence)

(Indicates a habitual or future action)

Situative (Presentative)		Terminative		Objective		Processive (Explicative and/or Descriptive)		Subjective		Neutral
Perfect	Imperfect	Perfect	Future	Perfect	Imperfect	Perfect	Imperfect	Perfect	Imperfect	Perfect	Imperfect
1st Person singular "I/me"	maa ngi	maa ngiy	naa	dinaa	laa	laay	dama	damay	maa	maay	ma	may
2nd Person singular "you"	yaa ngi	yaa ngiy	nga	dinga	nga	ngay	danga	dangay	yaa	yaay	nga	ngay
3rd Person singular "he/she/it"	mu ngi	mu ngiy	na	dina	la	lay	dafa	dafay	moo	mooy	mu	muy
1st Person plural "we"	nu ngi	nu ngiy	nanu	dinanu	lanu	lanuy	danu	danuy	noo	nooy	nu	nuy
2nd Person plural "you"	yéena ngi	yéena ngiy	ngeen	dingeen	ngeen	ngeen di	dangeen	dangeen di	yéena	yéenay	ngeen	ngeen di
3rd Person plural "they"	ñu ngi	ñu ngiy	nañu	dinañu	lañu	lañuy	dañu	dañuy	ñoo	ñooy	ñu	ñuy

In urban Wolof it is common to use the forms of the 3rd person plural also for the 1st person plural.

It is also important to note that the verb follows certain temporal pronouns and precedes others.

Literature

The New Testament was translated into Wolof and published in 1987, second edition 2004, and in 2008 with some minor typographical corrections. [http://www.biblewolof.us/]

The 1994 song '7 seconds' by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry is partially sung in Wolof.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wolof_language". The list of authors you can find on this page.