- Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:26 pm
#25902
I was recently talking with Mamady and Monette about various inflections in Malinke. Interestingly, the example that Monette brought up was the word "Kono", which can have four meanings depending on the intonation and context.
1. bird
2. but, such as
3. stomach
4. in
A little while back I posed a question about a dununba rhythm where Djembefeeling and Dugafola kindly pointed out that it was Konowulen 2, which Djembefeeling referred to as the "bloody bird".
music-and-drumming/name-that-dununba-rhythm-t3710.html
This conversation got me thinking about how tricky transcribing a tonal language into an atonal system such as English or French. Most words aren't written down in Malinke (the confluence of technology and N'Ko might change this
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/magaz ... ssage.html)
so we're stuck with various transcriptions. I'm curious, how do folks deal with the tonal variations? When reading or hearing a Malinke word such as Konowulen, what strategies do you guys use to decode that this is "Kono" and "Wulen", which mean bird and blood? For example, is this by analogy to soliwulen, which means "red panther" or where do we find this out? The obvious answer is to store such a question for someone who speaks Malinke. A second choice would be to use a dictionary or other reference:
cultural/maninka-malinke-language-thread-t3190.html,
however, these aren't so great. Are there other resources that people have found useful?
Thanks,
-Brian
1. bird
2. but, such as
3. stomach
4. in
A little while back I posed a question about a dununba rhythm where Djembefeeling and Dugafola kindly pointed out that it was Konowulen 2, which Djembefeeling referred to as the "bloody bird".
music-and-drumming/name-that-dununba-rhythm-t3710.html
This conversation got me thinking about how tricky transcribing a tonal language into an atonal system such as English or French. Most words aren't written down in Malinke (the confluence of technology and N'Ko might change this
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/magaz ... ssage.html)
so we're stuck with various transcriptions. I'm curious, how do folks deal with the tonal variations? When reading or hearing a Malinke word such as Konowulen, what strategies do you guys use to decode that this is "Kono" and "Wulen", which mean bird and blood? For example, is this by analogy to soliwulen, which means "red panther" or where do we find this out? The obvious answer is to store such a question for someone who speaks Malinke. A second choice would be to use a dictionary or other reference:
cultural/maninka-malinke-language-thread-t3190.html,
however, these aren't so great. Are there other resources that people have found useful?
Thanks,
-Brian
