Primary Greetings:
There are four primary greetings to use depending on the time of the day. They all
follow the same format which looks like this:
I ni + TIME OF DAY
- Sooma (morning)
- Tele (day or sun)
- Wura (afternoon or early evening)
- Su (night)
This gives us the following options based on the time of the day:
● I ni somma: Good morning
● I ni tele: Good day
● I ni wura: Good afternoon
● I ni su: Good evening
Rough approximation of when to use the greetings:
Sooma = Am to noon-ish
Tele = noon-ish to 3pm-ish (12p.m-3p.m)
Wura = 3 pim-ish to early evening (3p.m-7p.m)
Su = evening through night (7 p.m. through nighttime)
Singular Vs Plural
● I ni literally means you and so in the strictest sense a greeting like I ni wura
means you and the afternoon. More specifically I (pronounced as ee) is the
singular form of you. This means that greetings like I ni wura and all the rest are
used for greeting a singular person.
● To greet multiple people in maninka one replaces I ( pronounced as ee) with Alu
(pronounced as aloo)
● For example, to greet a group of people in the morning we would say: Alu ni
somma meaning good morning to a group/multiple people.
● You may hear the word A (pronounced as ah) replaced as Alu. They’re different
forms of the same things.
Reference: alu / a
To sum up, I (pronounced as ee) is singular and Alu/ a (pronounced as aloo and aa ) is
plural.
Responding
If anyone greets you with one of the forms above you need to first respond with one of
two words depending on your gender identity.
- Nba (which is for male)
- Nse (which is for female)
From there you can simply just repeat the time of day that was used when you were greeted.
Example: Here is an exchange where someone is greets a woman in the middle of the day
- I ni tele
- Nse! I ni tele
Translation:
- Good day!
- Nse! Good day!
Greetings with Activities
● In addition with greeting with the time of day we can also greet with an activity or
context. To do this we keep the same structure but we replace soma, tele, wura,
and su with an appropriate noun. This will look like this:
● I/ Alu ni + Activity
● For instance if you saw a friend who was working and you wanted to say hello
you might want to use the word baara meaning work for instance:
● I ni baara! - Meaning Hello to someone that's working. Baara means work
● Or if you hadn’t some friends in a long time you might say:
● Alu ni fama! - Meaning “Hello, it's been a long time”! Fama means absence.
Some more nouns:
- I ni loo (low)- meaning hello while you're at the market.
Literal translation: You and the Market
- I ni tunun (too-new)- I meaning I haven’t seen you in a while
Literal translation: You and disappearance
- I ni taama- meaning someone is traveling and you say hello
Literal translation: You and travel
- I ni sene - meaning welcome, it means you’ve arrived
- I ni ke (che) ! - meaning thank you or hello at any time of day
You will always respond to all of these I ni and activity greetings in the same way you do
with times of day by using Nba and Nse.
Note: If someone says I ni somma and you want to keep the conversation going
you would say Nse! I ni somma but if you want to cut the conversation/ not talk
after that you can just say Nse and that's it.
Multiple greetings in one exchange
Multiple I ni or Alu ni phrases can and often do occur in a single greeting exchange between
people. For instance if your old friend returned in early evening from travels after a really long
time away from home you could greet her by saying:
- I ni wura !
- Nse!
- I ni sene !
- Nse !
- I ni taama !
- Nse !
- I ni fama !
- Nse !
In english each one of these sentences would require a totally different structure think of
something like:
- I ni wura ! - Hi
- Nse!
- I ni sene ! - Welcome back
- Nse !
- I ni taama ! - How was your trip
- Nse !
- I ni fama ! - It's been so long
- Nse !
But in mankika you can simply use different times of I ni or Alu ni greeting phrases. Because of
this it is really important that you focus not necessarily on understanding what the word that
comes after I ni or Alu ni is but rather on recognizing that they are greetings and then
responding automatically back with Nse or Nba.
Your night/ day
Greetings will always almost go on much longer this typically happens via a question about how
someone had passed the night or day. In the morning whenever you greet someone with
somma the question that someone will often ask you is tana ma si ? meaning has an ill not
passed the night. This expression comes from tana meaning ill, evil, or even totem. And the
verb ka si meaning to pass the night.
● Tana ma si?
Literal translation: Did you pass the night without an ill?
Colloquially: Did you sleep well?
Example of saying good morning to someone when they just woke up
- Me: In ni somma!
- Person: Nse tana ma si?
Meaning:
- Good morning !
- Nse Did you pass the night without an ill/ did you sleep well
Note: tana ma si is only for the morning
A similar expression is used in the same way for the other three times of day which is
tele, wura, and su. Instead of tana ma si we have tana ma tele ? meaning did you pass
the day without an ill or more literally has an ill not pass the day.
- Tana ma telen
Telen means to pass the day
Extended greetings:
- Somma
Tana ma si?
- Tele/Wura/Su
Tana ma tele?
Note: you may also hear both of these questions with an optional word ba at the
end for example tana ma si ba? or tana ma tele ba? This is simply a formal way of
marking a sentence as a yes or no question.
After this initial extended greeting people will often ask you about someone else in your
social circles they often do so with the following expression:
- Tana te x la- meaning is their not an ill upon x
In this expression x can be replaced by just about anything, some more typical things to
ask about though are the person you’re talking to or other people. For instance:
- Tana te i la? - meaning is an ill not upon you
This phrase can often be written as tana t’i la ?
Here are a few other examples of the kind of words you might hear people use to ask
about other people:
- I ke (ee che) - meaning your husband
- I moso - Your wife
- Denbaya - The family
- *Proper names like aminata or mamadou
- Langinekalu - The people of Guinea
Note: The post position la generally turns into na when it is preceded by a word that
ends in a nasal sound for example:
- Tan te I den la ?- meaning there isn’t an ill upon the child often becomes tana te I
den an ? because the word de meaning child ends with nasalization/
Sometimes people simply ask about places when this happens there’s generally no
need to use the post position la for instance:
- Tana te yen?- meaning is there not an ill there?
Literally: Is everything going okay where you are
Here are a few other words you may hear people use to ask about phrases
- Yan - meaning here
- Lagine - meaning Guinea
- *Town names
- Lu ma - meaning in the courtyard/ home
An All purpose response
- Tana si te! - meaning there isn’t any ill
This expression works just fine on its own as a response to tana ma si or tana ma tele
ot tana te x la. Here’s an example of how it works in practice
- Me: I ni tele! - Good day
- Person: Nse! I ni tele! - Nse Good day
- Person: Tana ma telen? - Is the day passing in peace
- Me: Tana si te. - Theirs no ill
- Person: Tana te denbaya la? - Theirs no ill upon the family
- Me:Tana si te. - Theirs no ill
- Person: Tana te Ameriki? - Theirs no ill in America
- Me: Tan si te - Theirs no ill
Other responses:
- Tan te x la -meaning suffering isn’t upon x
- X ka kende (ken day)- meaning x is healthy
- X ye yan/yen - X is here/there
You need to fill in x with the appropriate pronoun based on the question someone asks
you.
Pronouns
n /ne (neigh)/nde (ndae): means I
i (e)/ile (ee-lay)/e (aye): mean you
à (ah): means he/she/it
an (ang): mean we
álu (aloo high): you all
àlu (aloo low): they
Example conversation:
- Person: Tane te i la? - is their any ill upon you
- Me: Tane te n na. - there isn't any ill upon me
- Person: Tana te i moso la? - is there upon your wife
- Me: À ka kende - she is healthy
- Person: Tana te dennennu na ? - is their an ill upon your children
- Me: tan si te àlu la. - their is no ill upon them
Other questions:
People won’t always just stick to using tana ma si? Or tana ma tele? Or tana te x la?
- Here sida (sira) - did you pass the night in peace
- Here tielnda (hera lit na) - did you pass the day in peace
- X ka kende - is x healthy?
- X ye di - how is x
- X don ? - What about x/how are they?
