Thanks for sharing Hassan! Yes, your take on things lines up with the way that many people in the video use the term "julakan" -- they often use it as a catch-all that encompasses all the Manding (or "Mandingo") varieties. At other times, it refers to the local variety/accent use in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso

yes but be careful with the spelling brother Dyula or dioula is one language but if you choose the spelling Jola some people might confuse it with the jola tribe in senegal,Gambia and Guinea Bissau which is an different tribe and language that ironically got their name from Mandinkas namely the name meaning jo-la as in paying someone something. The reason why Mandinkas called them Jola is because they were known to repay you with what ever you did to them, if you do good to them they pay you back, if you do bad to them they pay you back for that to. So the mandinkas started calling them jo-la that is someone who repays. thereby the name Jola, due to the similiar spelling of Dyula and Dioula etc some people confuse the two as the same but they are not.

@@freedom_is_gold6747 Yes, many uninitiated outsiders assume that Jola/Joola is the same as Jula/Dioula/Dyula, but it's not :-)

@@Ankataa yes btw i sent some of the Ghanian Wangara clips to some friends from Mali they understood perfectly the Ghanian dialect, i also found some more about their whereabouts. i also found out that there is a wangaro community in old Kano city in Kano in Nigeria and there are more places. However what would be interesting is to find out about the Bambara communities of Tchad, Benin and Togo as well, i have never seen any footage of that.

@@freedom_is_gold6747 Very interesting! When you say Bambara communities of those countries though, it sounds like it might refer to more modern migration whereas the Wangara communities are potentially centuries old. Just like the ethnic Jula communities of Burkina and Côte d'Ivoire

Nba! I Keïta :-)

I think that's a good way to put it! I particularly like the way that you said that "Jula and Bambara" have the same source (i.e., Manding) instead of saying that Bambara is the source of Jula :-)

Thanks, Thierry! Means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy the other episodes in the "Na baro kè" series :-) I've got a few more coming out soon as part of Season 2 from Abidjan!

Hi Joel! Thanks for sharing. I appreciate the kind word and support. If you are looking to learn Bambara, think about checking out the series of lessons/lectures that I made called "Basic Bambara": kzfaq.info/sun/PLGHg5ka8T5EKQJGpasAUY2FkKkNn5jDjT

Nba! I ni fama, SolMar :-) Good to "see" you in the comments of the new season too! ;-) Yes, the parallel or UK English vs US English that you use is the exact one that I myself use when explaining the dynamic or teaching students!

@@Ankataa hey it’s nice too see a lot of people speaking my native language i live in america and you don’t see people knowing the language because i’m from mali and burkina faso so i’m kinda in the middle😅

@@aichekeita6007 I ni ce, Aiche :-) So glad that you get a kick out of the video. Where did you grow up? Near the middle or is your family spread across both sides of the border like many others? Ko n bɛ Ameriki-kaw fo!

I ni ce, Cedric ;-)

Nba! I ni ce, GG02Echo -- nice to hear from you too :-) Thanks for the support and appreciation!

Je vous en prie, Mory :-)

Good example! It's the same one that I use for people many times :-) The major difference being that we call both "English" in the US and the UK 🙃

I ni ce, Drake :-) Glad you found it. Where you are watching from? I Sisse!

Oh, just saw that you are Gambian in a comment on another video :-)

@@Ankataa yea, am glad to found it, watching from Germany

@@DrakeSisse7045 Oh cool! Früher wohnte ich für drei Jahre in Hamburg! Da habe ich viele Leute aus Gambia kennengelernt :-) Where do you live?

Thanks, Seydou! :-)

I ni ce, IAMNASO :-)

You're welcome, Bolong! :-)

I ni ce! Ala k'i sara!

Thanks, Mohamed :-)

Btw jula kan means trader’s language

I ni ce, Ibrahim :-) Thanks for the nice message. Yes, "Jula" means 'trader' and "julakan" literally means "trader's language". But the history of how this variety emerged is often oversimplified to say that it's just a lingua franca form of Manding spoken by traders. In some centuries-old Jula communities (like in Kong, etc), their form of Jula is distinct from the trade language form that one hears in markets and major cities. It's not really considered to be a distinct language, but rather a different way of speaking. My hope was that the vide would start to unpack some of the different attitudes and around complexity around this! :-)

Thanks Don Jaguar! :-) I ni ce!

I ni ce, Hassan! Ka tile hɛɛrɛ caya!

Thanks, Kawsu! But I think it's better to spell it "Jula" (or even "Dioula" or "Dyula"). The spelling "Jola/Joola" is currently used for another language that is not Manding and is spoken in the Casamance region of Senegal.

I ni ce! :-)

Thanks for sharing, Suwareh! Yeah, I think that in many regions, there's a shared history and identity that people use to roll "Mande" peoples into one. That said, "Mande" for linguists today refers to a broader family of languages that are separated by 1000s of years, aren't mutually intelligible and often have little to do historically with the people stemming from "Manden" (the historical region and polity often referred to as "the Mali empire"). "Manding" on the other hand refers to the mutually intelligible varieties known as Bambara, Jula, Maninka and Mandinka (and various things in between, etc) that descend from what have historically been "Manden-ka-kan" ('the language of the people of Manden'). Manding and its modern iterations are simply one part of the Mande language family. All that to say, that in the terminology that I generally use, I'd say that your friend wasn't calling you "Mande", but rather "Manding" (since "Mandinka" literally means "person from Manden"). The "Mande language family" in the way that linguists use it today includes a range of languages that I am not sure if people such as your Wolof friend would necessarily throw into the "Mandinka" (AKA "Manding") basket. For instance, Bissa and Susu or Mano, etc. Historically, there's been a lot of exchange and overlap between Soninke and Manding. For instance, arguably some ethnic Jula of what is today Burkina Faso and/or Côte d'Ivoire can be traced back historically to Soninke traders that set up shop in the area during the era of the Ghana empire, but subsequently "became Manding" during the era of the Mali empire when they were joined by Manding speaking traders and ended up speaking their language. A similar process of intermingling with Manding speakers and subsequent adoption of their language also explains the way that one can be ethnically "Soninke" or "Jahanke" today, but also be regarded as "Mandinka" (AKA Manding) in the Senegambia region. For what it's worth, and in case it's helpful, I discuss these dual communities with a bunch of references cited on pages 76-77 of my dissertation (you might know the cited works already): repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2751/ There's a map around there too that I made, which tries to visually show how the Ghana empire, Mali empire and the "Jula" trade network (which was Soninke dominated at one point) intermingled historically to spread Manding as a language doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3402767 My apology for the very long reply! I Suwareh! I Mandenmori!

I could talk about obscure history, ethnology and linguistics all day long, so i dont mind the long reply! In fact, mine is just as long. Gulp. I spoke about this with my father today and he specifically referred to Bambara, Sarahule, the peoples in Sierra Leone who arrived there a long time ago, and Susu as "Mandinka". He tends to explain that these are dialectical or geographic variations of "Mandinka", like the Scandinavian peoples or the West Geats, East Geats etcetra within Sweden, even when he doesnt understand the language. Because i also "learned" the dichotomy of Mande : Manding : Mandinka from Western academia, i was surprised to find that my family does not make any such grammatical distinction and uses Mandinka both as the name of a specific group and all (of what we would call) Mande. For example my brother (born and raised in Gambia) just replied about the Susu, "i dont know much about them but i think they are mandinkas too". But i still wonder if Bissa, Mano, Susu etcetra themselves have this terminology. It will be interesting to read your dissertation in full. When i asked my father about whether we should switch to N'ko, he said it is not necessary because we can use the Latin alphabet, and that the Europeans themselves got it and other fundamentals (like mathematics) from Asia, so we can use it too. Ah! i didnt expect him to say that. Unfortunately i cannot speak Manding yet (im focusing on Sarahule for now) so i dont know the exact meaning of Mandenmori haha, but the word looks so cool! I approximate it through your nifty translator to "You Suwareh! You Manden marabout!" which is a nice touch ;). Conversely, do you know if Mandekalu means anything?

@@salemsuwareh1643 Thanks for sharing a bit more, and especially that of your father's interpretation! Please give him my best :-) "I Mandenmori" is an honorific phrase for people with last names like "Suwareh" -- it has to do with the traditional historical role of "Suwareh" as Islamic scholoars/marabouts in Manden ;-) "Manden-ka-lu" means "Manden-inhabitant-PLURAL" so "people of Manden". This term in the singular "mandenka" is the source of the modern word "Maninka" and "Mandinka" which is often used to refer to distinct to ethnic groups (but sometimes "Manding people" in general as discussed earlier). In the village where I lived in Burkina Faso, nobody identified as "Maninka" or "Mandinka". Most of my friends had never heard the term or regarded it as an ethnic group from Guinea or Mali. They considered themselves ethnically "Jula". Which goes to show that ethnic identity is fluid and complex, like our discussion here suggests :-)

@Ankataa Hehe, cool! figured something like that about the honorific ;). Thanks for the translation, Mandekalu is such a good sounding word. Do you know if Bambara or Jula (or more far-fetchedly, Soninke) have a term for the Mande peoples, like how my family uses Mandinka? Your video partly answers that question since they use Jula like that for the Manding dialects. But i wonder if there is a term for "Mande peoples" (or whatever is the largest cohesive group in their mind) that people will recognise, no matter where in the Mande sphere you say it.

@@salemsuwareh1643 You're welcome! :-) No, I don't know of any term that people use in Bambara or Jula with a meaning that encompasses "Manding" and other languages from the broader family. I don't think that one exists. In my experience, people refer to Soninke as "maraka" because it's a distinct ethnic group. Except perhaps in the way that you mention that non-Manding people in Côte d'Ivoire sometimes use "Jula" as a term for for people from the northern regions that they view as primarily Muslim and Manding speakers, but they also apply it to the other "northern" ethnic groups that put into the same basket despite their languages being distinct: Soninke, Mooré, etc.

Thanks, Soloman! I talk about Mandinka vs Bambara/Jula in this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h6lxZqihnZPPp5c.html&pp=ygUbbWFuaW5rYSBtYW5kaW5rYSBkaWZmZXJlbmNl Otherwise, I touch on the differences in the first section of my general resources page: www.ankataa.com/resources And as far as Maninka vs Malinké...they are two different names for the same thing. In the language itself, the language is called Maninkakan. If you drop off the ending -kan (which means 'language'), you are all left with "Maninka." The name Malinké is the French language name for Maninka. It is often used interchangeably with "Maninka." This is because most Maninka-speaking regions are in countries that are officially francophone.

@@Ankataa wow, thanks, now I understand perfectly, I never knew malinke was the French translation of maninka, until now. Well understood, thanks 👍

Do you consider "An ka taa" an institute? 🙃 I have online courses, etc. www.ankataa.com/ Otherwise, what do you mean by institute and where are you looking?

Cool to hear that the video makes you feel closer to Côte d'Ivoire :-) Is that where you are from originally?

@Ankataa No -- Gambia. We have always been taught that our people migrated from Ivory Coast way back.

@@ebsincamara2246 I imagine that at the time there wasn't even a place called Côte d'Ivoire :-)

Thanks for sharing Ibrahim! :-) On a related note, I'd say that in "lingua franca Jula", people often do more French language borrowing than in "lingua franca Bambara". However, in my experience, people say "kaba" in Jula more often than saying the French word "maïs". And yes! The "l" and "d" variation is a key correspondence! :-) - I b'à lɔn/dɔn? = Do you know it? In this blog post, I cover more of the formal differences between the two varieties: www.ankataa.com/blog/2019/4/30/bambara-and-dioula

@@doumbiamalickhabibluqman8705 That's new to me. In Ghana, we call maize "NY))". I don't have the right keyboard to type exactly what I am referring to.

@@Ankataa well noted

@@ibrahimabdulrahman8694 "Ɲɔ" for me is millet, but there may be regional variation!

@@doumbiamalickhabibluqman8705 I have heard that form in Kong, I believe, but in my experience "kaba" is also used.

I think you find what what I meant when I was saying what you refered to as "A YE WA" in a comment on the live Q+A video ;-)

N bɛ min lɔn, à man ca! :-)

I'd love to someday but nothing concrete planned!

@@Ankataa Oh I see, We have a different version on Manding from the ones I saw on your videos.

@@abdurrahmansanyang7680 Yes, it's quite different :-) But I'd love to go nonetheless!

Nba! I ni ce, karamɔgɔ! I ɲɛnafin bɛ n na dɛ

Thanks for chiming in and sharing, Bawah! Where are you from in Ghana? Or where do you consider your Jula from?

@@Ankataa Cape Coast (Ghana) My grandparents said we are originally from Mali but l don’t know exactly were in Mali

@@bawahjunior3859 Ah! That's a horse of a different color kind of :-) I thought that you would have grown up in the north near the border with Burkina/Côte d'Ivoire, but it sounds like a different history of family migration. Wish I could visit the Cape Coast and enjoy the waves a bit :-)

Hi Ebrima! Mandinka and Jula (like Bambara and Maninka/Malinké) are all varieties of Manding so yes, you can often consider them varieties of a single language. For more details, a map and references, check out this Resources page of mine: www.ankataa.com/resources

Thanks for sharing, Vamuyan :-) Yes, another possible label for Manding as a whole is "N'ko" for you and many others!

C'est un peu le sujet de la vidéo :-)

ߒ߬ߓߊ߫߹ ߌ ߣߌ߫ ߗߋ߫

Nba! I ni ce, Soung :-) N ye i ka kuma faamu kosɛbɛ! Pour des informations sur le clavier Bambara, voici une page sur mon site: www.ankataa.com/blog/how-to-type-bambara

Did you try looking up "soro" in the dictionary? dictionary.ankataa.com/search.php?input=soro&search=lexicon

@@Ankataa no i dont know how to use the dictionary

@@Ankataa but i will try👍

@@leandrokensen2407 You type in a single word (or what you think is a word) and then see what you get 🙂 You can also browse via letter if you aren't finding what you are looking for! It should me self-explanatory, but if you have a specific question, let me know

@@Ankataa yes i have a question do you know the reggea artis tiken jah fakoly he sing in this language i love his music but i don't understand what he sing and i want to learn this language so i can understand his songs

Hi Siôn! Thanks for the thoughtful comment and questions. In this video, no, I wouldn't say that I am in speaking in Bambara and they are answering in Jula. Bambara and Jula are as close as American and British English, and since I'm not a native speaker and I have studied multiple varieties of Manding formally, I mostly adapt my speech to where I am. I actually learned Jula (from Burkina Faso) first, so that's the variety that comes out most naturally in most contexts. Interestingly, many Ivoirians state that I have a Bambara/"Malian" accent even when I speak 100% like I learned in Burkina Faso. In such cases, it's mostly a question of exposure and meta-knowledge of the differences. It's like an American who might hear Kiwi English as Australian or the like. In terms of Manding and the differences/intelligibility between the varieties, you might find these helpful: General resources page with descripton/map about Manding www.ankataa.com/resources Blog post about Bambara vs Jula www.ankataa.com/blog/2019/4/30/bambara-and-dioula As for your question about the overall sociopolitical situation of Jula/Bambara and/or Manding in general, I hope I can get to it as a video someday! In the meantime, I'd recommend checking out my dissertation about N'ko activists of Manding-speaking West Africa which is open access: repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2751/ Or if you want something shorter, my article about Manding standardization and orthography: repository.upenn.edu/gse_grad_pubs/2/

@@Ankataa excellent! Thanks for going to the effort to answer my (many!) questions so fully! A video on the socio political linguistic situation would be very interesting and important. So much discussion about African languages ends up in a frustrating discussion about 'cuture' and tradition'. I sees to that many Africans are totally unaware of the car crash which their languages are going to have soon if they don't has status, education, voice recognition, media in their languages and if they don't adopt a standard form rather than fretting about dialects as different languages. It's concerning. I'll have a look at your links. Thanks again.

I ni ke, Lisa :-) Je pense que tu as tout à fait raison que si on faisait le même exercice pour l'anglais aux Etats-Unis, on trouverait plus de gens que tenterait de faire l'accent brittanique. Dans cette vidéo, je pense qu'il y a un côté où on veut pas être vu en train d'imiter quelqu'un d'autre. Un désir de ne pas se moquer de l'autre pourrait en effet être un facteur, mais je pense pas que ça explique tout !

I ni ce! It's all Manding to me too ;-)

Nba! I ni ce! Ala ka farafinkanw sabati! :-)

Nba! I ka commentaire ninnu diyara n ye. Ala k'an bɛɛ dɛmɛ! Vidéo kura bɛna bɔ février kalo la, n'Ala sɔnna :-)

ߒ߬ߓߊ߫ ߸ ߌ ߣߌ߫ ߞߋ߫