Talk:Wolof language

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[edit] Text/template pending deletion

What is that message about text/template pending deletion all about? The wikilinks it cites are quite uninformative. Also, why was it put there?
Lucidity 22:51, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's referring to the little "This language has its own Wikipedia Project. You can visit and contribute at the Wolof language Wikipedia." InterWiki box at the top, not the whole article; it's there cause someone wants to delete the InterWiki template. Rather an ugly and confusing way to do things, I agree, but it should be gone soon. - Mustafaa 00:07, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Mustafaa, that clears it up.
Lucidity 08:18, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Phrase lists

Is it usual to add phrase lists like the one here to language pages? While it's a nice list, wouldn't it be better suited to Wikibooks or something? --babbage 16:01, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nope, it isn't usual, and I agree with you that it would be better to transwiki the data to somewhere. It is usual to include some illuminating sample sentences; but the present list is more like a tourist phrasebook (actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it's an outright copy from one). — mark ✎ 22:08, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Basic sentences

I pulled the following out of the article. While it might be useful information for some, it is somewhat out of place in an encyclopedic article about the language. I did not delete it because it might need to be transwikied to (for example) Wikibooks or something. — mark ✎ 21:32, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here are some useful phrases:

English Wolof literally
How are you? Nanga def?  
I'm fine/doing all right. Mangi fii (rekk). I am here (only).
Are you in peace? Yaangi ci jamm?  
peace only, thanks be to God jamm rekk, Alxamdulilaay  
How is your family? Ana sa waa ker? How are the people of your house?
They're fine. Ñunga fa. They are there.
How much (is it)? (Bi) Ñaata (la)?  
It's expensive. Dafa cher/jaffe.  
Lower the price. Waññi ko.  
thank you jërejëf  
You're welcome. Ñoo ko bokk. We share it.
yes waaw  
no déedéet  
I'm hungry. Dama xiif.  
I'm thirsty. Dama mar.  
I'm tired. Dama sonn.  
good morning (Did you pass the night in peace?) Jamm ngam fanaan?  
yes, thank you jamm rekk, Alxamdulilaay in peace only, thanks be to God
good morning/How are you? (this morning) Naka suba si? How is the morning?
It's going fine. (in the morning) Suba si, sangi nii (rekk). The morning is here (only).
See you later. ba ci kanam until later on
See you next time. ba beneen (yoon) until (the) next (crossing)
goodbye (Go in peace.) jamm ak jamm peace and peace


Here's another part of the table that was on the main page, but I think it would be better suited for wherever we put the list of phrases:

|- |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 loppitaan bi? |Where is the hospital? |Where is - hospital - the?

Annekoplinka (talk) 18:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "English language loanwords"

The following section was added to Wolof and then moved here. I've pulled it out first of all because it is unreferenced but mainly because, frankly, many of the etymologies are highly unlikely. — mark ✎ 14:16, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Because many of the African slaves sent to America were kidnapped from the regions of West Africa where Wolof and related West African languages were spoken, these language groups have made numerous incursions into English, including:
  • banana (Wolof)
  • banjo (mbanza?)
  • bug (bugu = annoy)
  • dig (degu = to understand)
  • hip, hep, hepcat (Wolof 'hepicat' = one who has his eyes wide open)
  • jazz (from Arabic 'jazib' = one who allures)
  • jigger (a bloodsucking mite)
  • jive (from Wolof 'jev', 'jeu' = to talk about someone absent, especially in a disparaging manner).
  • mumbo-jumbo (the name of a West African god)
  • voodoo (obosum = guardian spirit)
Also, the phrases "sweet-talking", "every which way", to "bad-mouth" and "high-five" may be loan translations from Wolof or other related West African languages.

(end of pulled out section) — mark ✎

[edit] Talk:Wolof

I just noticed that Talk:Wolof, oddly, redirects to here. Presumably they were once considered one article and are now separated? I'm moving my last comment to Talk:Wolof and making it its own talk page, but if anything more complicated needs to be done in separating edit history, etc., let me know and I'll give it a shot. --Dvyost 21:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Orthography

Either there is one standard orthography that provides a 1:1 correspondence to the Roman alphabet, or there is not one standard orthography and 1:1 correspondence is impossible. Everything else about English and French not having the 'original Latin alphabet sounds' is meaningless to this article. The Dogandpony 06:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced??

This article is marked as unreferenced, but the bibliography contains quite a few references. Is there any specific type of reference still missing?--Sannab 14:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, it does look like there's a lot of reference here, and they seem good (except we need a link to the Peace Corps PDF dictionary). But there are some claims that seem unclear to me, and they aren't cited to any one reference, to any particular page, so there's no way I can go look for myself without digging through all of them. Maybe I put the wrong tag on. The Dogandpony 16:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing gender

In the section entitled "Missing gender" it is stated that

Grammatically, Wolof does not dinstinguish between male (masculine), female (feminine) and neuter; in other words, it does not use a grammatical gender. So, for example, mu ngi dem can be translated into "he goes", "she goes" or "it goes", depending on the actual context.

This statement is confused. Grammatical gender has nothing to do with the personal pronouns such as the it, he and she of English. Is the author trying to say that Wolof lacks gender-specific pronouns, in which case the example used is correct but the term grammatical gender is inappropriate), or is he trying to say that Wolof—like English—lacks grammatical gender, in which case the example is incorrect and instead it would be useful to specify whether gender is marked on some or all nouns (as it is with the words actor and actress in English). Note that marking gender on nouns is neither necessary or sufficient for a language to have grammatical gender. Unfortunately, I don't know which of these two possibilities is true of Wolof, and so I cannot correct the statement. --Wikcerize


I tried to disambiguate this section - please let me know what you think. Wolof has neither a grammatical gender, nor gender-specific pronouns, so I hope this is clearer from what I wrote. Please let me know, and maybe we can un-tag it. - Annekoplinka 15:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)