I have always loved linguistics and, being from Quebec, I am particularly interested in all the different variations of the French language. I am eager to hear the French spoken in Burkina Faso and learn the expressions, words, and even grammatical structures that are specific to the country. One expression that I have heard and that I like a lot is "faux type". The literal translation would be something like "false type", or some kind of con man, but it really means something more subtle. Not exactly a bad guy, but someone who pretends to be your friend with hopes of gaining something, monetary or otherwise.
Of course, even though French is the official language in the country, it would be nice to learn one of the local languages. The problem is "which one"? There are over sixty different ones. I think Jula is spoken is most of the villages where the FAVL libraries are located, but Moore is spoken more widely, by at least 5,000,000 people. I tried a little, but it's of course a language from a different family and nothing is familiar. Changing the intonation of a word changes its meaning, and you need a complete different word to express the plural of something. As somebody was telling me recently: “Moore pa na-na ye” (Le Moore, c’est pas facile!)
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Helene,
ReplyDeleteThe students definitely want to be learning Jula, which is the "lingua franca" of the villages where they will be. We'll have a little introduction to pleasantries the first few weeks in Ouagadougou.
MK