Hi, everyone! I hope you like the video! If you're learning a language, try my FAVORITE way of practicing: with native speakers online using italki --► go.italki.com/1Ojye8x
Oh My God !!!! I mean... waouh!! Wolof is my mother tongue. I grew up speaking it. So here I am, in my late twenties thinking that i master my mothrr tongue only to discover that I dont even know the theory behind grammatical logics i use without even thinking about it. You did a GREAT job, i learnt so much from watching this. We can see the research and the depth put into it. Thanks a lot. Jereejeuf, ligueyu ndandane deugg ngafi deff.
Most of us use our native languages with perfect fluency without knowing much about its grammatical structure. Really there is no need to understand the grammar in order to speak a language fluently and correctly. But the underlying grammar is always interesting, at least to me.
Language is first of all music and repetition and the link to your cultural reality. Every single child in the world just learns his language by repeating it and listening to it all day long. It's because the methods which are mostly based on grammar are inefficient and students spend years at school learning almost nothing. Among the almost 7000 languages, only very few of them are written! Oral is always the best way to practice. And even before travelling to a foreign country, try to take oral courses with someone from the country. Here some helpful tips : ruclips.net/video/d0yGdNEWdn0/видео.html
I came here to learn more about West-Africa and their languages because I just saw a beautiful movie name Atlantics and I fall in love with it. Senegalian women so beautiful as well and for me the different religions are always my fab topic. I am Hungarian and live in the UK with my family and thankful to God my son growing up in multicultural society where I can show him how beautiful everybody. God keep all of us in good health and his love.
Wow Mister Paul ! I am one of your senegalese followers and what a surprise ! I never expected you making a video from one of my country’s languages. You’re right and you’ve done great research. Happy to know that you don’t focuss only in so called prestigious languages because no one language is superior to another ! Thanks my friend PAUL and you help me improving a lot with languges ! Jerejef Paul! Ya ndaanan!
Ugh, there was never a 'superior' language as some would like to claim. Personally, I think each language is unique, each own having a flavour. Sure there are languages that are more developed - but that does not make them superior on my opinion, since each language develops one way or another - slower, faster, it really depends on the circumstances.
@@georgeflorescu1254 I think by prestigious languages he means the ones average people try to learn, Spanish, French, German, Russian, yk, the ones everyone and their mom knows about, and a lot of these channels only focus on those ones which is boring to me personally cause I much prefer the more niche, unknown languages, and this channel is perfect for that, but there's some even more obscure ones I wish someone could do, Paul gave his reasons for not going into anything too unknown, which is completely understandable, but just waiting for someone to start doing those more unknown languages, I've even thought about doing that but I don't really have the charisma for it and I have a thing for getting too detailed
@@jemts5586 A language is more 'developed' that has much more words than another. Take for instance Cornish and English. Although Cornish is a separate, completely different language from English, they have took a lot of words from it. There are plenty of words in cornish that are very similar(if not the same) as in english. I do know for a fact that Cornish has taken some words from english, because the Cornish Language didn't have them. Therefore, English is somewhat more developed in my eyes. Of course, the development of a language does not reduce itself on the number of words and I may be mistaken on some parts of my comment.
I really wish there was more of a promotion on African languages. Wolof, Twi, Yoruba, Lingala, Kongo, Swahili, Amharic, Malagasy. So many of them seem very interesting, but almost impossible to fully immerse in without actually travelling there. It's also even crazier considering how many people speak these languages, once you remove English and French from the equation.
@Edgearth It can be an autronesian language and still be African. Malagy as we know it today is an African language and is only spoken in Madagascar. Does it come from autronesia ? Yes. Is it African as in spoken in Africa by African people who have been inhabitingthe region for centuries ? Also yes. It's like saying tigrinya isn't an African language because it's semitic and semitic languages originated in the Middle East.
You are right. Note: among all African languages mentioned LINGALA is the most sung one in music for more than 50 years . In fact most popular african singers starting from the 1950's sing in either colonial languages or pidgin which is European based languages such as Nigerian pidgin which is mostly used nowadays
In a way it has, because of Youssou N'Dour via Peter Gabriel, Neneh Cherry & others. All African languages need better recognition, though! It pains me that French is the official language but Wolof is not.
@@sal_strazzullo Yes - I don't want to debate the politics, but as a European whose country did the whole colonialism stuff it makes me angry and ashamed that English, French etc are still official languages when native tongues are not 😞 Especially when through music and things like Langfocus I learn how beautiful these languages are!
@@bordershader Of all the tragedies colonialism brought with itself, language may not be the worst. Most ex colonies are made up of many ethnicities anyway and the former colonial language can act as a lingua franca for them and build a channel toward the rest of the world. In some former colonies the original languages have disappeared, it's true, but certainly not everywhere. African languages are still widely spoken.
Wolof have a lot of common words with Amazigh/Berber language of North Africa. I have a friend from Senegal living in Morocco, he was teaching me some Wolof words and suddenly we discovered a lot of similarities with the local berber language. Big love to our Senegalese friends! Great people!!!
Zakaria Assaid These similarities between Wolof and Berber languages could be due to the fact that Wolofs and Berbers have been trading with each other for centuries. Plus, it was Berbers from North Africa that introduced Islam to the Wolof people.
The differences between Wolof spoken in the main cities and the rural area are multiple. Most french words used in city Wolof are not used in the rural areas. Also the way of construction of the sentences will vary. The accent whether you're in the city or the country may vary as well. Great job Lang Focus.
@Colton Augustine That's awesome he's channel is great, i remember the first video i watched, it kept popping up on my suggestions, He made a joke in the beginning, and i didn't realize he was joking so i stopped watching, but it kept popping up again, so i watched the whole video, Subscribed and the rest is history (the video was something like"what is the easiest language to learn" or something like that.)
@Colton Augustine It's nice to see see thet there are people that look for actual subject matter in youtube videos. No matter how long you have been watching. This is the best linguistic channel I have yet to happen upon.
It's a pretty great survey for anyone interested in any specific language. Also I love how he is essentially trying to review a majority of spoken languages. I have no clue how long it will take for him but mon Diue, he has covered a plethora of information. He's like the little Engine that could.
My favorite local restaurant is a Senegalese restaurant, the names of the dishes are mostly in Wolof. The thing that stuck out to me was most of the words are one or two syllables. But the language seems very complex. On another note, the Wolof invented Jollof Rice.
The grammar of this language is really interesting. In Europe all the languages of Africa are underrated. We don`t have any possibility to learn them. That`s why I appreciate this channel. I see new horizons here. Thanks a lot !
If only you knew how rich is Wolof. A word can have over hundreds substantials. We get 10 articles and what's amazing in Wolof is that their articles emphasize on distance, presence or absence rather than gender.
This makes us think about language, and we realise how fascinating languages are. I love Paul and Langfocus. It's so unusual to find this amount of knowledge in a youtube channel!
It's my second language😍😍😍 so beautiful!!! Spoken too in Gambia and Mauritania!!! It's the more spoken between 38 languages until more that the official language(French). Proud of my african languages! I am Fula from Senegal. Salut à tous! Saludos a todos!
Wolof seems to have such interesting features we don’t see in other languages (at least the “most popular” ones), it’s great to learn about it. Great work, Paul!
I lived in Dakar for six months. I was able to get by with my very limited French, but I was often urged to learn Wolof. Because my husband is Guinean, I decided to focus on learning French. But, my thinking has changed. I don’t believe we should focus on colonial languages, because it is rather insulting. Now I am learning Wolof in preparation for a future visit, and hope to also learn some ethnic languages from Guinea as well. My friends and loved ones will be surprised, and pleased, I think. And, it is very enriching to me! Thank you so much for this content!
I live in Senegal most of the time and work on learning Wolof, it is really fascinating but also quite difficult. I get along with French, most people are fairly fluent.
Wowwww! I am from Senegal and Wolof is my mother tongue but I have learned a LOT from you today. Thank you for your time and dedication. You nailed it!
Have you done one on Papiamento? It’s so fascinating. West African Portuguese creole spoken on Dutch Caribbean islands with English and Dutch influence
I lived in Senegal with a local family for a year in Dakar. I learned a pretty decent amount and am still studying the language. At first, it was extremely difficult, but it gets easier over time as you get used to its patterns and tendencies. In Dakar, you can definitely get around with French (maybe a little in Eng lish). However, I'd say the more rural you are, the harder it will be to find people who speak French (maybe even wolo f) but there will usually be someone there who speaks a little Frenc h. While I was in Senegal, I visited a village on top of a !mountain where an isolated ethnic group lived called the Bedik people. They spoke Bedik natively, and then Pulaar (that was the majority language of the region we we were in), wolof, French (if they were educate), and maybe even Jaxanke (other dominant language in region). Obviously not everyone spoke all of these (I'm sure some only spoke Bedik) but these people had the potential to fluently speak five or six languages fluently just based off of their circumstances which I think is extremely cool. I know the chief spoke five natively
@@coscorrodriftI'm Senegalese and it's not rare seeing people that can speak 3 to 5 local languages. The most popular ones are Wolof, Pulaar, Serere, Diola and mandingue. I can only speak wolof to be real with you aside from some insults in other languages(weird but fun thing in Senegal the first thing you are going to learn are insults).
Very cool. The Wolof pronoun cases that shift focus is similar to the way that verb affixes in Tagalog that shift focus to actor, object, recipient, tool, location, etc.
I am a Mauritanian Arab i speak some Wolof and Pulaar another language which are national languages in Mauritania alongside with Soninke i wish that one day Senegal 🇸🇳 uses Wolof and, Pulaar, Serer and their languages as official languages instead of French the Africans should be proud of their identities languages and beautiful cultures instead of Frenchs language
I spent a few years in Dakar as a teenager in the late 90s - early 2000s. It's so interesting to see the actual mechanisms of the language that I had somehow learned (although I was never fluent) without being aware of the grammar technicalities. Thanks for this in-depth analysis!
Brazil has received senegalese imigrants in the last 10 years. In my hometown there have lots of them. I have always noticed tese nasal sounds and a very sillabic language, many of them seems to finish with wether the vowel "u" or "o".
This video update is a nice surprise; my wife is a Toucouleur, but her main language is Wolof. We (me not so much as i wish i could) speak Fana-Fana Wolof, some of her family lives in Dakar and speak Dakar-Wolof.
@@anthonymcphucker8754 Well, lets not go into splitting hairs on this please. My wife identifies herself as being a Toucouleur. Never in all the years that i am married to her, she used the label Hal Pulaar. Also if you check the several wiki's on all the labels that people use to address Hal Pulaar, ( being Tukulor or Haalpulaar, or the French entry on all the variants; Foutanké (variantes Foutankoré, Futankobé, Futatoro (Futa Toro), Haal Pulaaren (Haalpulaar, Haal Pulaar, Halpular, Hal Pular, Haalpulaaren), Pulaar, Takruri (Tekarir, Tekrourien, Tekrour, Tekruri, Tukri, Tokoror), Torado (Torodo), Toucouleurs (Tuculeur, Tokolor, Toucouler, Tukuler, Tukuleur, Tukuloor, Tukulor, Turkylor) You see, that there seems to be a lot of appropriate possibilities. We just pick what we think is suitable, that is all. Besides that; she barely speaks any Fula for that matter, her family compound is a nice tribal mix of several groups, in which the Wolof language is the connecting language element. enfin, my(ours my wife too) 2 cents on the matter
Wolof is definitely much more complex a language than English, and I didn’t think that was even possible! That’s also fascinating how the west African slaves in the USA incorporated Wolof words into American pop culture! I’ve always loved jazz and blues, and I love “jukin’.” I had no idea that those words came from Wolof, or even that the language existed!
I'm guessing it's just that the basics are weird. Also, of course, if you don't speak a related language then there is going to be lots of vocabulary to learn. The French loan words would probably help a bit, though, considering how similar French is to English. And anyone who actually spoke French or Arabic would have some advantage.
It's not Official language but we speak it everywhere in senegal, French used only in schools, and government, but wolof is most spoken language ,we speak it on televisions, markarts, series, houses, everywhere, a Senegalese if he doesn't go to school he will never speak French, most people senegal dont speak french, only peolpe who study French language, in every cost and some of west Africa coutries people speak French even they dosent learn it because it's a lingua franca, But senegal not that, wolof is the lingua franca,auteur tribs in Senegal like serer peul, jolo, soose, most of them speak wolof.
I lived in Gambia in at least in the lower region in the serrekunda area (SerreKunda is the main city in Gambia like the New York of Gambia) and English and Wolof are the main Languages Mandinka has the most first language speakers but almost everybody speaks wolof in Gambia if ur in the main cities only village people speak just their first language. Wolof in Gambia is like pideon in Dubai if you get in a taxi anywhere in Gambia you must use wolof. if you use English than you reveal that ur a foreigner and might get over charged or you are bourgeois so still everyone involved in business speaks wolof its fair to say in is lingua franca in Gambia also.but the Wolof in Gambia is super simple this kinda of Wolof is extremely complex compared to Gambian city Wolof which I think is the world's easiest language I started learning Malay and Indonesian and Lived in both countries and none them were remotely as easy as Gambian Street wolof that use in serrekunda region another thing Gambian city wolof has so many English words till a Senegalese told me Gambian wolof isn't wolof
It's amazing how complicated languages seem when you try to explain them explicitly. Yet we all learn these complicated linguistic rules subconsciously from listening to our parents and those around us, speak. And we can all tell when someone speaks with bad grammar even if we haven't formally learned the explicit rules. Their speech just sounds "off" to us. I guess it just goes to show that we learn a lot subconsciously, and we know a lot more than we're consciously cognisant of. I think humans are a lot more primitive than they seem. Language more than anything else, separates us from our cousins. We develop to be as intelligent as we are only because of being taught language by the society we live in. In turn, language serves as a conduit to fill our minds with complex ideas like math, science, etc. If a human were to grow up without exposure to speech and any kind of formal education or training that has been handed down through the centuries, that human will be not much more intelligent than a chimpanzee. It is the preservation and transmission of knowledge through writing and speech that produces the illusion that humans are so intelligent. We are artificially intelligent.
Great to see this video, thanks! I've been living/working in Senegal for the past two years, and about to start a third. The language I learned for my community was Mandinka, but I picked up a lot of Wolof to get around the rest of the country. I'm studying Wolof more now for my new position. I'd love to see a video on Mandinka, or Mande languages more broadly!
You should cover the Baltic language family, specifically Lithuanian, in a future video. The relation to the Vedic languages and it's major use of the diminutive would make for an interesting video. Very interesting to learn more about an African language!
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My God, wolof is more complicated than Chinese... Well done 👍 Thank you 🙏
May be obvious since Senagal was a French colony, but the way the words are said sounds so French-like, even if the language itself is very different. Is almost soothing, IMO.
@@visioday1814 I'm not talking about influence. I'm talking about accent. The way the words sound seems a bit french-like. As if they speak from the throat or stomach and not fron nasal/head voice.
@@JettoDz There is no influence of French in the wolof accent or pronunciation. The guy pronouncing in the video is not a native speaker. He learned from his parents in the diaspora but you would probably claim the same if you hear a native speaker. France colonized many people in Asia, Africa and Europe, yet they didn't influence the accent of the native language. Wolofs are not an exception. Plus wolofs have their own French accent which is difficult to understand when it's really heavy. Don't forget that wolofs are also in Gambia which was not colonized by France, yet they speak "French like", I mean wolof like. Remember the Normans colonized England for centuries and did not turn middle English into a middle French like pronounced language. African countries were created by the colonizers without paying attention to the locals and because of that the borders of these countries separate people. For example Yorubas are in French colonized Benin and British colonized Nigeria, hausas are in French colonized Niger and British colonized Nigeria, Akans are in French colonized Ivory Coast and British colonized Ghana. Somalis are in French colonized Djibouti, non colonized Ethiopia, British colonized Kenya and Somaliland and Italian colonized Somalia which togother with the British Somaliland make up Somalia today.... If you want to look for an influence from the colonizers on an African people, you should check in the other countries with a different colonizer. Before you claim French influenced the pronunciation of wolof, check the wolof of British colonized Gambia.
N A Its not a historical language, but a mix people of different regions used to communicate. Belgians standardised and spread its use across the country.
I'm an Arab Mauritanian. I have been to Gambia, learned some Wolof there and now, after years, I forgot a lot of it. جرجف واو ناكام Generally people in Senegal speak a little bit of French as well as English in Gambia (in the cities of course) . So u can go with European languages there.
Thank you very much, Mr Paul for this wonderful analysis of the Wolof language. I am Wolof and I am from Senegal. However, you taught me a lot !!! Once again, thanks a lot !!!
Thanks! I've watched the video again. Just to make some precision. Pare(in the reservation Phrase) is a French word it is :NÓPPI" in Wolof. "Ëlëg dinanu dem marse bi" means next time we'll go to the market Moreover marse is French derived from marché, the wolof word is "Ja". Last, the speaker's accent doesn't look like a native Wolof accent. All in all thank you you did a great job, this is the best wolof class I've seen on RUclips.
As Wolof is your mother tongue, could you help us writing down the lines in Wolof in this german song and translate it into English? The song: Eine Welt Eine Heimat. lyricstranslate.com/en/adel-tawil-eine-welt-eine-heimat-lyrics.html
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Saint-Louis and Dakar from 2016-2019 and learned Wolof and lived with a Wolof host family. Wolof is a cool language and pretty easy to learn. I did my trainings in Wolof! In Dakar, everyone speaks French, but there are places in the bush that speak more true/deep Wolof.
I am Senegalese and I grew up in Belgium. It's been almost 6 years since I came back to the country and the thing is that I relearned Wolof without any other teacher than the street and the people you can find there in about 1 year. But what I had to say is that even it's a language that seems strange in its construction it's not complicated to learn, you just have to hang on and it's done naturally. And above all you must always keep in mind that it opens the doors of not only the Wolof culture but also all ethnic groups that can be found in Senegal, Gambia, southern Mauritania and even a little in Guinea and Mali and who uses it as second, third or fourth language🇸🇳❤️...
Marché = Luuma Ba paré is a french loan term from prêt= finish. Instead rural form would be "ba noppi" Dakar wolof= Paré naa = I've finished Rural wolof= noppi naa = I've finished Just some remarks I spotted from the video. By the way I like it very much. Thanks
Actually because he knows standerd Arabic and also the dialects of Lebanon and Syria and also a lot of darija (Maroccian accent) When I also learned English I spoke it with my Arabic accent, lol
Thanks for this great video! Though there are a few details that I would phrase a bit differently, I find this has grown into a really good introduction into Wolof grammar! Just one minor remark: From my own experience, I would say that people in the city of Ziguinchor (Casamance region, southwestern Senegal) insert at least as much French into their Wolof as those living in Dakar. This is related to the fact that almost all formal education is in French, and both Dakar and Ziguinchor are highly literate areas (i.e. literate in French) compared to other parts of Senegal. In addition, Wolof only recently became the dominant language of wider communication in Ziguinchor, which means that many people there have a restricted vocabulary in it, and the others have to adapt to the latter. In some cases, a Wolof word is perceived as easier than a corresponding French one, and in other cases a French word is perceived as easier than a corresponding Wolof one. Also, French and Wolof words and phrases are used while speaking other local languages. There is a lot of borrowing and code-switching going on there, but this highly mixed code, always adapted to the respective people one is talking to, is the most natural way for people in Ziguinchor to express themselves ...
@@coscorrodrift Take for instance the following example from one of the interviews I conducted in Ziguinchor. The inhabitant I talked to has close ties to both Dakar and Ziguinchor. In this section, she tells me how she moved from Dakar to Ziguinchor in her childhood/youth: "Sama yaay, bu muy dellusi fii … Bu muy séy ak sama pàppa, dafa demoon Dakar, mais bu muy dellusi fii - parce que sama pàppa gaañu - ñu àndsi ak moom, ñu ñów fii Ziguinchor. Bu ñu ñówee nak, j’ai adopté cette région parce que c’est une très belle région. Mais … waaw. Neex na ma daal." As you may see, she uses recognizably French words in between her Wolof - in this short section these are "mais" and "parce que". And then she uses a mainly French sentence, introduced by a Wolof subordinate clause: "Bu ñu ñówee nak, j'ai adopté cette région …" After this sentence, she continues in Wolof again. This example was the first one coming to my mind, but you can find better ones for instance in the book "Le plurilinguisme au Sénégal. Langues et identités en devenir" by Martine Dreyfus and Caroline Juillard (2004).
This channel is so much better than so many other language channels on RUclips. Thanks for giving us detailed language profiles with grammar breakdowns and example sentences! It’s always so interesting to see other languages and try to contextualize them through comparing them to others. Wolof is fascinating, particularly the stative verbs. The only languages I know are European languages and a little Japanese so to learn about languages from different language families is very interesting. I’m always very interested in non indo European grammar because it’s alway so indicative of how people for extremely different cultures and regions categorize and conceive meaning from the world in such diverse and interesting ways. Keep up the great work, man, we all really appreciate it!
An interesting clip about a very unknown language. l still remember when in my teens in the 1970s, what might have been the first time l heard about Wolof, when Finnish television, strangely enough, screened a Senegalese movie. A character says to his daughter: Why do you answer me in Wolof, when l ask you something in French?
Whoa, I think, Wolof is the language with the most alien grammatical concepts I've seen so far (on langfocus). I definitely need to rewatch it. Most languages just express one and the same grammatical concepts in different ways, but Wolof seems to introduce wholy new concepts. In comparison, Kiswahili as an example of another African language seems almost straightforward.
Check out Yaw's youtube channel and website then . [ Stephen Awiba (Yaw) , learnakan com ] , I've bought his audio/book package, it's one of the best Twi resources
@@timsalter5505 No, it's pronounced /tɕᶣi/ , in some pronunciations it's a slightly 'whistled' sounds, I only got to understand how it's pronounced when I've actually met a native speaker demonstrate to me.
I was planning some years back to be working and living in Senegal and knew Wolof was an important language there, but knew nothing about it, how to speak it, or even how to get started. Of course, the project people were fluent in French and we received a quick French immersion, but nary a mention of Wolof. I learn a bit now from your video. I find it to be a fascinating language and I like the way verbs are standardized and the pronouns take over. This may be hard to learn, but once practiced, would make it not too hard to learn to converse in Wolof. The music in Senegal is so cool too. I very much want to go there sometime. Thanks for another great video.
I did an exchange in Senegal and did my best to learn Wolof but was nowhere near proficient. I mostly got around using French, which I only started to learn upon arriving in Senegal, mixed with Wolof and English.
Totally in love with every your video. Languages are my life(I study Chinese, Japanese and English and I'm an Italian language mother tongue) and you make them very interesting and funny. THANK YOU, PAUL
*I'm an Italian Or *Italian is my mother tongue "I'm an Italian language mother tongue" doesn't work. P.s. I want to learn Italian one day (I know some extreme basics).
Azure Griffin oh ok😂 i’m learning german and i can tell you there’s not much resemblance to italian, making an exception for some loan words. danish, i have no idea. but i’m sure you will learn italian, just pay attention to grammar because it’s HARD and sometimes even us italians can’t remember all the rules😪
@@benskyddd Italian tenses are a nightmare and the three verb forms, plus all the ways words like "nello" combine... it makes me thankful that German is a little more starightforward in some senses. Also, I can't get when adjectives go before or after a word. Italian's easier for English speakers, and so's Danish. Danish is what happens when Satan makes German easier for the English speaking population. The grammar is easier... and everything else is Hell. Like French in terms of spelling and with vocal features that make any sane person want to cry. And the counting is dumb. Danish spelling is sorta like "we'll put a letter that uses roughly that part of the mouth. You'll pronounce it right after enough beer." Ok, I'm being mean, but a Swedish person will joke that he carries a potato in his pocket so he can stick it in his mouth when he encounters a Dane.
My Gambian friends want to teach me Mandinka and Wolof, also gonna learn Indonesian, Balinese, and Javanese from my Indonesian friends. French would be great too.
I'm a Senegalese mandinka I have almost forgotten how to speak my native tongue which is mandinka, wolof is the only language left that I can speak little of with my mom
Wolof has a relly interesting structure. To my eye it looks like the snapshot of a transition from an isolating language towards an agglutinative one. The pronouns you mention, infact, start looking a lot like detached inflections. Another job well done, Paul.
I visited beautiful Senegal in 2001 and 2010 for a few months each time. I was told that the schools are in French and the children are punished if they use Wolof or any other native language in school. It seems to me that they are still colonized, and the currency indicates that fact. I feel that the people suffer under puppet governments all over the world postioned to opress the culture and it's people and serve the colonizers still. When I visited the rural areas I got to learn the correct Wolof words for Market, not marche or marse, jubuh, and other ones. When i went back to Dakar I had fun speaking the native words that I had to teach to the locals. Senegalese people had a great sense of humor and appreciation about it. I LOVE SENEGAL and miss it, can't wait to go back ❤️
I have been living in Smeegal for a few months. Learning Wolof had been such an interesting experience it allows an immense amount of inflection and nuance. I am still struggling with my verb suffixes and proper pronoun choices. However Senegalese wolof speakers are very patient and helpful! Similarities with Haitian Creole are fascinating, especially the use of ak as a meaning both and as well as with.
Glad to see a video on Wolof. I know it from a band called Wock whose song "Sama Amie" was once the theme music to the Paris-Dakar rally. I have their album the song is from.
Hey Paul, I see at 3:39 a similar word of "muus", which is "mush" in Tamazight. "muus" and "mush" both mean "cat". Edit: I found out that in one Tuareg language, which is probably Tamasheq (which also belongs to the Tamazight language branch) cat means "muus" or "moos", so there must be probably a connection here, but who knows?
We lived in Senegal a total of eight years. Wolof is a fun language to speak, once you master the pronouns. And local people appreciate it. An additional benefit of learning Wolof is that you learn so much about Wolof culture that never gets expressed in French. Since we lived a couple of hours inland from Dakar, everyone knew our region by local habits, such as the negative -ult instead of the more usual -u. If you ever remake this video, be sure to have a speaker who grew up in a Wolof village where they still geminate final consonants, e.g., tudd (tudda, not tud), still stretch long vowels, e.g., baax (baaakh, not bak), and still love to hear noun class indicators.
![[TF2] The Russian Bear Trap](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YFNSwz2_rOA/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi, everyone! I hope you like the video!
If you're learning a language, try my FAVORITE way of practicing: with native speakers online using italki --► go.italki.com/1Ojye8x
Thank you Paul, I love your videos, you explain languages well and seem to have a passion for it❤
When they finally break from France like Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali they will adopt their native languages.
Can you make a video about lingala🙏🏾🙏🏾
Could you do the next Video without this annoying and useless background music please
Oh My God !!!! I mean... waouh!!
Wolof is my mother tongue. I grew up speaking it. So here I am, in my late twenties thinking that i master my mothrr tongue only to discover that I dont even know the theory behind grammatical logics i use without even thinking about it.
You did a GREAT job, i learnt so much from watching this. We can see the research and the depth put into it. Thanks a lot. Jereejeuf, ligueyu ndandane deugg ngafi deff.
Thank you, you did a great job.
Most of us use our native languages with perfect fluency without knowing much about its grammatical structure. Really there is no need to understand the grammar in order to speak a language fluently and correctly. But the underlying grammar is always interesting, at least to me.
Language is first of all music and repetition and the link to your cultural reality. Every single child in the world just learns his language by repeating it and listening to it all day long. It's because the methods which are mostly based on grammar are inefficient and students spend years at school learning almost nothing. Among the almost 7000 languages, only very few of them are written! Oral is always the best way to practice. And even before travelling to a foreign country, try to take oral courses with someone from the country. Here some helpful tips : ruclips.net/video/d0yGdNEWdn0/видео.html
My father still mock me every time I mess up the grammar speaking wolof 🤣
I came here to learn more about West-Africa and their languages because I just saw a beautiful movie name Atlantics and I fall in love with it. Senegalian women so beautiful as well and for me the different religions are always my fab topic. I am Hungarian and live in the UK with my family and thankful to God my son growing up in multicultural society where I can show him how beautiful everybody.
God keep all of us in good health and his love.
Wow Mister Paul ! I am one of your senegalese followers and what a surprise ! I never expected you making a video from one of my country’s languages. You’re right and you’ve done great research. Happy to know that you don’t focuss only in so called prestigious languages because no one language is superior to another ! Thanks my friend PAUL and you help me improving a lot with languges ! Jerejef Paul! Ya ndaanan!
Ugh, there was never a 'superior' language as some would like to claim. Personally, I think each language is unique, each own having a flavour. Sure there are languages that are more developed - but that does not make them superior on my opinion, since each language develops one way or another - slower, faster, it really depends on the circumstances.
@@georgeflorescu1254 I think by prestigious languages he means the ones average people try to learn, Spanish, French, German, Russian, yk, the ones everyone and their mom knows about, and a lot of these channels only focus on those ones which is boring to me personally cause I much prefer the more niche, unknown languages, and this channel is perfect for that, but there's some even more obscure ones I wish someone could do, Paul gave his reasons for not going into anything too unknown, which is completely understandable, but just waiting for someone to start doing those more unknown languages, I've even thought about doing that but I don't really have the charisma for it and I have a thing for getting too detailed
@@Jerimbo Check out NativLang
@@georgeflorescu1254 What do you mean by a more developed language? Like, what makes a language more developed, from your perspective?
@@jemts5586 A language is more 'developed' that has much more words than another. Take for instance Cornish and English. Although Cornish is a separate, completely different language from English, they have took a lot of words from it. There are plenty of words in cornish that are very similar(if not the same) as in english.
I do know for a fact that Cornish has taken some words from english, because the Cornish Language didn't have them. Therefore, English is somewhat more developed in my eyes. Of course, the development of a language does not reduce itself on the number of words and I may be mistaken on some parts of my comment.
I really wish there was more of a promotion on African languages. Wolof, Twi, Yoruba, Lingala, Kongo, Swahili, Amharic, Malagasy. So many of them seem very interesting, but almost impossible to fully immerse in without actually travelling there. It's also even crazier considering how many people speak these languages, once you remove English and French from the equation.
Hi greetings u can check my channel I'm a Wollof from The Gambia and teaching Wollof national language too ruclips.net/video/3uNOurSp-9I/видео.html
@Edgearth you are correct
@Edgearth It can be an autronesian language and still be African. Malagy as we know it today is an African language and is only spoken in Madagascar. Does it come from autronesia ? Yes. Is it African as in spoken in Africa by African people who have been inhabitingthe region for centuries ? Also yes. It's like saying tigrinya isn't an African language because it's semitic and semitic languages originated in the Middle East.
peridottttt I really want yoruba to get promoted alongside all the other languages you mentioned. (Don't hate me I just like to embrace my culture)
You are right.
Note: among all African languages mentioned LINGALA is the most sung one in music for more than 50 years . In fact most popular african singers starting from the 1950's sing in either colonial languages or pidgin which is European based languages such as Nigerian pidgin which is mostly used nowadays
Wolof is a very underrated language I think. Should get more attention abroad.
In a way it has, because of Youssou N'Dour via Peter Gabriel, Neneh Cherry & others. All African languages need better recognition, though! It pains me that French is the official language but Wolof is not.
@@bordershader I think that is because France still has a lot of influence in Senegalese politics
@@sal_strazzullo Yes - I don't want to debate the politics, but as a European whose country did the whole colonialism stuff it makes me angry and ashamed that English, French etc are still official languages when native tongues are not 😞 Especially when through music and things like Langfocus I learn how beautiful these languages are!
@@bordershader Of all the tragedies colonialism brought with itself, language may not be the worst.
Most ex colonies are made up of many ethnicities anyway and the former colonial language can act as a lingua franca for them and build a channel toward the rest of the world. In some former colonies the original languages have disappeared, it's true, but certainly not everywhere. African languages are still widely spoken.
Duolingo should offer this.
Wolof have a lot of common words with Amazigh/Berber language of North Africa. I have a friend from Senegal living in Morocco, he was teaching me some Wolof words and suddenly we discovered a lot of similarities with the local berber language. Big love to our Senegalese friends! Great people!!!
Thanks for sharing I was genuinely wondering if there are some similarities between the two.
Zakaria Assaid These similarities between Wolof and Berber languages could be due to the fact that Wolofs and Berbers have been trading with each other for centuries. Plus, it was Berbers from North Africa that introduced Islam to the Wolof people.
@@ekmalsukarno2302 true. Same as arabic or french in other regions of Africa
L'empire almoravide
@@ekmalsukarno2302 berber introduced it to fulanis andhaussai who then converted all west africans
The differences between Wolof spoken in the main cities and the rural area are multiple. Most french words used in city Wolof are not used in the rural areas. Also the way of construction of the sentences will vary. The accent whether you're in the city or the country may vary as well. Great job Lang Focus.
Right. Definitely not in Gambia.
Awesome, I do Wolof lessons on my Chanel but mine isn’t as professional as yours. I’m from Gambia but my roots are from Senegal 🇸🇳
*Lang Focus has Exploded, i remember watching at 200,000 subscribers more or less that's awesome!* 💪
Thank you!
@@Langfocus my pleasure
@Colton Augustine That's awesome he's channel is great, i remember the first video i watched, it kept popping up on my suggestions, He made a joke in the beginning, and i didn't realize he was joking so i stopped watching, but it kept popping up again, so i watched the whole video, Subscribed and the rest is history (the video was something like"what is the easiest language to learn" or something like that.)
@Colton Augustine It's nice to see see thet there are people that look for actual subject matter in youtube videos. No matter how long you have been watching. This is the best linguistic channel I have yet to happen upon.
It's a pretty great survey for anyone interested in any specific language. Also I love how he is essentially trying to review a majority of spoken languages. I have no clue how long it will take for him but mon Diue, he has covered a plethora of information. He's like the little Engine that could.
My favorite local restaurant is a Senegalese restaurant, the names of the dishes are mostly in Wolof. The thing that stuck out to me was most of the words are one or two syllables. But the language seems very complex. On another note, the Wolof invented Jollof Rice.
The grammar of this language is really interesting. In Europe all the languages of Africa are underrated. We don`t have any possibility to learn them. That`s why I appreciate this channel. I see new horizons here. Thanks a lot !
If only you knew how rich is Wolof. A word can have over hundreds substantials. We get 10 articles and what's amazing in Wolof is that their articles emphasize on distance, presence or absence rather than gender.
In São Paulo's streets we hear a lot wolof ,because of the huge number of senegalese living there.
At my city in Sergipe there are 2 men from Senegal. I get really curious to know what they're talking about
@fifikhalifa barry I will try
Since this channel my passion for Language became deeper.
This makes us think about language, and we realise how fascinating languages are. I love Paul and Langfocus. It's so unusual to find this amount of knowledge in a youtube channel!
Martin Ahlman And RUclips is just awesome! I love this network!
It's my second language😍😍😍 so beautiful!!! Spoken too in Gambia and Mauritania!!!
It's the more spoken between 38 languages until more that the official language(French).
Proud of my african languages!
I am Fula from Senegal.
Salut à tous!
Saludos a todos!
@Pepe the Frog i am fula our language is "Pular" or "fulfulde".
@@aaro7822 So you speak Pular, Wolof, English (your comment), French (Salut à tous), Spanish (Saludos a todos)...
Congratulations, Buba.
@@alberto1481 my English is limited,
I speak Fula, Wolof, French and Spanish, some Portuguese too.
@@aaro7822 Portuguese or Kriol de Bissau ? ; )
@@hichambahsoun9939 Kriol is spoken too in the south of my country. I can talk some sentences but not much. I speak better Portuguese.
Senegal should make Wolof an official language already
Alongside French of course, just like India with English and Hindi at national level.
Nobody cares
Ricky E. someone named ricky probably wont.
i support my senegalese brothers to have there own identity and language and kick french influence
@@Ricky_Evans1611 Then why are you here?
Wolof seems to have such interesting features we don’t see in other languages (at least the “most popular” ones), it’s great to learn about it. Great work, Paul!
I'm proud to be Wolof and it is a big pleasure for me to see a Canadian guy giving a simple and great introduction to this precious language.
When I lived in Mauritania, Wolof was the lingua franca of most of the non-Moor population in the southern part of the country.
Love wolof ❤️
from morocco 🇲🇦
Wolof is the coolest language ever.
You are a phenomenon, Paul.
Your video really helped me because I live in Sénégal as a foreigner.
Thank you very much !
Great, I’m glad to hear that!
Never thought I'd see similarities between wolof and uzbek! Thank you, Arabic (and Paul!) 😉
6:40 "Hello everyone. Welcome to the LangFocus channel, and it is Paul that I am called"
I`m European, but Africa is my favourite continent. I appreciate its languages diversity.
In Nigeria alone there are over 500 languages and over 200 ethnic groups
I lived in Dakar for six months. I was able to get by with my very limited French, but I was often urged to learn Wolof. Because my husband is Guinean, I decided to focus on learning French. But, my thinking has changed. I don’t believe we should focus on colonial languages, because it is rather insulting. Now I am learning Wolof in preparation for a future visit, and hope to also learn some ethnic languages from Guinea as well. My friends and loved ones will be surprised, and pleased, I think. And, it is very enriching to me! Thank you so much for this content!
I live in Senegal most of the time and work on learning Wolof, it is really fascinating but also quite difficult. I get along with French, most people are fairly fluent.
Wowwww! I am from Senegal and Wolof is my mother tongue but I have learned a LOT from you today. Thank you for your time and dedication. You nailed it!
Have you done one on Papiamento? It’s so fascinating. West African Portuguese creole spoken on Dutch Caribbean islands with English and Dutch influence
Ami ke wak un video di Papiamentu. 👀🤓😎
Good to see you here, and I'm very interested in that as well since I'm Dutch :)
I see u everywhere
@@antoin2189 Ami n ta papia Kriolu di Cabo Verde.N kre odja un video di papiamentu.
@@FidjuDomi ami ke aprende krioulo di Cabo Verde. Abo por yuda mi?
I lived in Senegal with a local family for a year in Dakar. I learned a pretty decent amount and am still studying the language. At first, it was extremely difficult, but it gets easier over time as you get used to its patterns and tendencies. In Dakar, you can definitely get around with French (maybe a little in Eng lish). However, I'd say the more rural you are, the harder it will be to find people who speak French (maybe even wolo f) but there will usually be someone there who speaks a little Frenc h. While I was in Senegal, I visited a village on top of a !mountain where an isolated ethnic group lived called the Bedik people. They spoke Bedik natively, and then Pulaar (that was the majority language of the region we we were in), wolof, French (if they were educate), and maybe even Jaxanke (other dominant language in region). Obviously not everyone spoke all of these (I'm sure some only spoke Bedik) but these people had the potential to fluently speak five or six languages fluently just based off of their circumstances which I think is extremely cool. I know the chief spoke five natively
Damn that's pretty crazy. How different are those languages between each other?
@@coscorrodriftI'm Senegalese and it's not rare seeing people that can speak 3 to 5 local languages. The most popular ones are Wolof, Pulaar, Serere, Diola and mandingue. I can only speak wolof to be real with you aside from some insults in other languages(weird but fun thing in Senegal the first thing you are going to learn are insults).
Thank you Langfocus for always making your language profiles as accurate and informative as possible!
Very cool. The Wolof pronoun cases that shift focus is similar to the way that verb affixes in Tagalog that shift focus to actor, object, recipient, tool, location, etc.
I am a Mauritanian Arab i speak some Wolof and Pulaar another language which are national languages in Mauritania alongside with Soninke i wish that one day Senegal 🇸🇳 uses Wolof and, Pulaar, Serer and their languages as official languages instead of French the Africans should be proud of their identities languages and beautiful cultures instead of Frenchs language
Im just a simple bloke:
When I see Langfocus I click! :)
I really like the way this language sounds and how expressive it seems.
I spent a few years in Dakar as a teenager in the late 90s - early 2000s. It's so interesting to see the actual mechanisms of the language that I had somehow learned (although I was never fluent) without being aware of the grammar technicalities. Thanks for this in-depth analysis!
Wolof is richer than French language. We must make an official language.
Agreed 💯
Brazil has received senegalese imigrants in the last 10 years. In my hometown there have lots of them. I have always noticed tese nasal sounds and a very sillabic language, many of them seems to finish with wether the vowel "u" or "o".
Paul, your work is simply a worldwide necesity. Thank you SOOOO MUUUUUCH! Hugs from Colombia 🇨🇴 💋!!
Heard of Wolof because of the song 7 Seconds...
This video update is a nice surprise; my wife is a Toucouleur, but her main language is Wolof. We (me not so much as i wish i could) speak Fana-Fana Wolof, some of her family lives in Dakar and speak Dakar-Wolof.
You're wife is not toucouleur, she's Hal Pulaar! That's more appropriate. Toucouleur is what the jolf (wolof) call us.
@@anthonymcphucker8754 Well, lets not go into splitting hairs on this please. My wife identifies herself as being a Toucouleur. Never in all
the years that i am married to her, she used the label Hal Pulaar. Also if you check the several wiki's on all the
labels that people use to address Hal Pulaar, ( being Tukulor or Haalpulaar, or the French entry on all the
variants; Foutanké (variantes Foutankoré, Futankobé, Futatoro (Futa Toro), Haal Pulaaren (Haalpulaar,
Haal Pulaar, Halpular, Hal Pular, Haalpulaaren), Pulaar, Takruri (Tekarir, Tekrourien, Tekrour, Tekruri, Tukri, Tokoror),
Torado (Torodo), Toucouleurs (Tuculeur, Tokolor, Toucouler, Tukuler, Tukuleur, Tukuloor, Tukulor, Turkylor)
You see, that there seems to be a lot of appropriate possibilities. We just pick what we think is suitable, that is all.
Besides that; she barely speaks any Fula for that matter, her family compound is a nice tribal mix of several groups,
in which the Wolof language is the connecting language element.
enfin, my(ours my wife too) 2 cents on the matter
Dakar Wolof is called cayor
Wolof is definitely much more complex a language than English, and I didn’t think that was even possible! That’s also fascinating how the west African slaves in the USA incorporated Wolof words into American pop culture! I’ve always loved jazz and blues, and I love “jukin’.” I had no idea that those words came from Wolof, or even that the language existed!
You didn't think that there could possibly be a language more complex than English?
rap is also wolof but with a B rab
Strongly disagree with your statement. What does "complex" mean in this context ? It is very hard to compare the "complexity" of different languages.
I studied some wolof and I'll keep studying it. It isn't so hard as it looks like
I'm guessing it's just that the basics are weird. Also, of course, if you don't speak a related language then there is going to be lots of vocabulary to learn. The French loan words would probably help a bit, though, considering how similar French is to English. And anyone who actually spoke French or Arabic would have some advantage.
Which sources did you use to learn it?
@@estherandherlittleworld7821 There is a PDF avaliable, New Wolof Book or something. I also have some materials in portuguese
@@Mr.Nichan As far as I know, only a few amount of Wolof speakers are fluent in Arabic, but French really will help you
@@gustavogiacomet4032 Nicee! I will search it, thank yoy
Senegal should makes Wolof language official
It is official lol
@@mangafrtony4974 Uh no-
It literally said it in the video
IT’S NOT OFFICIAL
It's not Official language but we speak it everywhere in senegal, French used only in schools, and government, but wolof is most spoken language ,we speak it on televisions, markarts, series, houses, everywhere, a Senegalese if he doesn't go to school he will never speak French, most people senegal dont speak french, only peolpe who study French language, in every cost and some of west Africa coutries people speak French even they dosent learn it because it's a lingua franca, But senegal not that, wolof is the lingua franca,auteur tribs in Senegal like serer peul, jolo, soose, most of them speak wolof.
This language bends my mind more than any other.
The first one was one of my favorite videos. Thank you for the update on this amazing language.
Also, 2 videos in the same week? whattttt
I lived in Gambia in at least in the lower region in the serrekunda area (SerreKunda is the main city in Gambia like the New York of Gambia) and English and Wolof are the main Languages Mandinka has the most first language speakers but almost everybody speaks wolof in Gambia if ur in the main cities only village people speak just their first language.
Wolof in Gambia is like pideon in Dubai if you get in a taxi anywhere in Gambia you must use wolof.
if you use English than you reveal that ur a foreigner and might get over charged or you are bourgeois so still everyone involved in business speaks wolof its fair to say in is lingua franca in Gambia also.but the Wolof in Gambia is super simple this kinda of Wolof is extremely complex compared to Gambian city Wolof which I think is the world's easiest language I started learning Malay and Indonesian and Lived in both countries and none them were remotely as easy as Gambian Street wolof that use in serrekunda region another thing Gambian city wolof has so many English words till a Senegalese told me Gambian wolof isn't wolof
It's amazing how complicated languages seem when you try to explain them explicitly. Yet we all learn these complicated linguistic rules subconsciously from listening to our parents and those around us, speak. And we can all tell when someone speaks with bad grammar even if we haven't formally learned the explicit rules. Their speech just sounds "off" to us.
I guess it just goes to show that we learn a lot subconsciously, and we know a lot more than we're consciously cognisant of. I think humans are a lot more primitive than they seem. Language more than anything else, separates us from our cousins. We develop to be as intelligent as we are only because of being taught language by the society we live in. In turn, language serves as a conduit to fill our minds with complex ideas like math, science, etc. If a human were to grow up without exposure to speech and any kind of formal education or training that has been handed down through the centuries, that human will be not much more intelligent than a chimpanzee. It is the preservation and transmission of knowledge through writing and speech that produces the illusion that humans are so intelligent. We are artificially intelligent.
Great to see this video, thanks! I've been living/working in Senegal for the past two years, and about to start a third. The language I learned for my community was Mandinka, but I picked up a lot of Wolof to get around the rest of the country. I'm studying Wolof more now for my new position. I'd love to see a video on Mandinka, or Mande languages more broadly!
PLEASE MORE content about AFRICAN languages!!
You should cover the Baltic language family, specifically Lithuanian, in a future video. The relation to the Vedic languages and it's major use of the diminutive would make for an interesting video.
Very interesting to learn more about an African language!
My God, wolof is more complicated than Chinese... Well done 👍 Thank you 🙏
May be obvious since Senagal was a French colony, but the way the words are said sounds so French-like, even if the language itself is very different. Is almost soothing, IMO.
There’s no French influence of Wolof
@@visioday1814 I'm not talking about influence. I'm talking about accent. The way the words sound seems a bit french-like. As if they speak from the throat or stomach and not fron nasal/head voice.
JettoDz the accents are likely influenced by French as well.
The Wolof accent is completely distinct from the French accent, even when we say French words you can hear our heavy accents
@@JettoDz There is no influence of French in the wolof accent or pronunciation.
The guy pronouncing in the video is not a native speaker. He learned from his parents in the diaspora but you would probably claim the same if you hear a native speaker.
France colonized many people in Asia, Africa and Europe, yet they didn't influence the accent of the native language. Wolofs are not an exception. Plus wolofs have their own French accent which is difficult to understand when it's really heavy. Don't forget that wolofs are also in Gambia which was not colonized by France, yet they speak "French like", I mean wolof like.
Remember the Normans colonized England for centuries and did not turn middle English into a middle French like pronounced language. African countries were created by the colonizers without paying attention to the locals and because of that the borders of these countries separate people. For example Yorubas are in French colonized Benin and British colonized Nigeria, hausas are in French colonized Niger and British colonized Nigeria, Akans are in French colonized Ivory Coast and British colonized Ghana. Somalis are in French colonized Djibouti, non colonized Ethiopia, British colonized Kenya and Somaliland and Italian colonized Somalia which togother with the British Somaliland make up Somalia today....
If you want to look for an influence from the colonizers on an African people, you should check in the other countries with a different colonizer. Before you claim French influenced the pronunciation of wolof, check the wolof of British colonized Gambia.
Great video once again, on the theme of African languages would love to learn about Lingala, very widely spoken and created by Belgian colonists
Lingala is the most beautiful bantu language. I dont speak it ,but i like fo listen tp to lingala music . Salut du bresil.
@@Poliglossa I love Lingala! It sounds so beautiful.
yes!! Lingala is awesome
Jean Jacques Sauvanet Created by Belgians ????
N A Its not a historical language, but a mix people of different regions used to communicate. Belgians standardised and spread its use across the country.
I'm glad to hear you're healthier now, Paul.
I'm an Arab Mauritanian. I have been to Gambia, learned some Wolof there and now, after years, I forgot a lot of it.
جرجف واو
ناكام
Generally people in Senegal speak a little bit of French as well as English in Gambia (in the cities of course) . So u can go with European languages there.
Humm, quelle langue est parlée en Mauritanie ? Est-ce que le français est encore utilisé ?
@@Яна-мамба en Mauritanie, on parle généralement en Arabe. On utilise aussi le français mais мало людей может говорить.
@@Muhammed-fv5kv yes they do if you mean Mauritanians. No if you mean Senegaleses and Gambians
In Mauritania they speak hassaniya (variety of Arabic), French, Pular, Wolof, and suninké all these languages are officially recognized
You should master more languages, at least 20 languages. You are brilliant!! Hoping you to be healthy, lucky and conduct concise lessons💐💐
The best wollof tutorial I have seen, you did justice to my mother tongue! Thank you
Thank you very much, Mr Paul for this wonderful analysis of the Wolof language. I am Wolof and I am from Senegal. However, you taught me a lot !!! Once again, thanks a lot !!!
I listen to lots of Wolof music by artists like Youssou N'dour, Thione Seck, and Orchestra Baobab and I've picked up a few words from it.
Thanks!
I've watched the video again. Just to make some precision.
Pare(in the reservation Phrase) is a French word it is :NÓPPI" in Wolof.
"Ëlëg dinanu dem marse bi" means next time we'll go to the market Moreover marse is French derived from marché, the wolof word is "Ja".
Last, the speaker's accent doesn't look like a native Wolof accent.
All in all thank you you did a great job, this is the best wolof class I've seen on RUclips.
Really cool how subject/object/verb emphasis is built into the grammar!
Mans put the title in all caps and still got 1/20 the normal views he gets on a vid, just shows how much people don’t care ab African language 😪
These are what I wanted to know for a long time!!! Thank you.
OMG, I'm so happy you made a video about my mother tongue. It's an amazing and rich language! I hope it will be our official language soon.
As Wolof is your mother tongue, could you help us writing down the lines in Wolof in this german song and translate it into English?
The song: Eine Welt Eine Heimat.
lyricstranslate.com/en/adel-tawil-eine-welt-eine-heimat-lyrics.html
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Saint-Louis and Dakar from 2016-2019 and learned Wolof and lived with a Wolof host family. Wolof is a cool language and pretty easy to learn. I did my trainings in Wolof! In Dakar, everyone speaks French, but there are places in the bush that speak more true/deep Wolof.
You didn't go to Fouta?
@@anthonymcphucker8754 I have been to the Fouta, but I didn't learn Pulo-Fuuta. Man, doomu Ndar ak Waalo-Waalo laa 😊
Haha i like wolof accent of peope of saint Louis i live in Dakar
I am Senegalese and I grew up in Belgium. It's been almost 6 years since I came back to the country and the thing is that I relearned Wolof without any other teacher than the street and the people you can find there in about 1 year. But what I had to say is that even it's a language that seems strange in its construction it's not complicated to learn, you just have to hang on and it's done naturally. And above all you must always keep in mind that it opens the doors of not only the Wolof culture but also all ethnic groups that can be found in Senegal, Gambia, southern Mauritania and even a little in Guinea and Mali and who uses it as second, third or fourth language🇸🇳❤️...
Marché = Luuma
Ba paré is a french loan term from prêt= finish. Instead rural form would be "ba noppi"
Dakar wolof= Paré naa = I've finished
Rural wolof= noppi naa = I've finished
Just some remarks I spotted from the video. By the way I like it very much. Thanks
You have a nice Arabic accent I must say dear Paul, very interesting and helpful informations.
Keep going and well done♥️💐🌹😊
@Yamen S. Gee whiz, how'd you figure that out?
Of course I know, but I assume that it is the second time I hear him pronouncing Arabic clearly.
@Yamen S.
Just speaking a language doesn't mean you get the accent. I'm English, so if I learnt Arabic, I'd be speaking Arabic with my own accent.
Actually because he knows standerd Arabic and also the dialects of Lebanon and Syria and also a lot of darija (Maroccian accent)
When I also learned English I spoke it with my Arabic accent, lol
Thanks for this great video! Though there are a few details that I would phrase a bit differently, I find this has grown into a really good introduction into Wolof grammar! Just one minor remark: From my own experience, I would say that people in the city of Ziguinchor (Casamance region, southwestern Senegal) insert at least as much French into their Wolof as those living in Dakar. This is related to the fact that almost all formal education is in French, and both Dakar and Ziguinchor are highly literate areas (i.e. literate in French) compared to other parts of Senegal. In addition, Wolof only recently became the dominant language of wider communication in Ziguinchor, which means that many people there have a restricted vocabulary in it, and the others have to adapt to the latter. In some cases, a Wolof word is perceived as easier than a corresponding French one, and in other cases a French word is perceived as easier than a corresponding Wolof one. Also, French and Wolof words and phrases are used while speaking other local languages. There is a lot of borrowing and code-switching going on there, but this highly mixed code, always adapted to the respective people one is talking to, is the most natural way for people in Ziguinchor to express themselves ...
Very interesting, what are some examples of code-switching in this case?
@@coscorrodrift Take for instance the following example from one of the interviews I conducted in Ziguinchor. The inhabitant I talked to has close ties to both Dakar and Ziguinchor. In this section, she tells me how she moved from Dakar to Ziguinchor in her childhood/youth: "Sama yaay, bu muy dellusi fii … Bu muy séy ak sama pàppa, dafa demoon Dakar, mais bu muy dellusi fii - parce que sama pàppa gaañu - ñu àndsi ak moom, ñu ñów fii Ziguinchor. Bu ñu ñówee nak, j’ai adopté cette région parce que c’est une très belle région. Mais … waaw. Neex na ma daal." As you may see, she uses recognizably French words in between her Wolof - in this short section these are "mais" and "parce que". And then she uses a mainly French sentence, introduced by a Wolof subordinate clause: "Bu ñu ñówee nak, j'ai adopté cette région …" After this sentence, she continues in Wolof again. This example was the first one coming to my mind, but you can find better ones for instance in the book "Le plurilinguisme au Sénégal. Langues et identités en devenir" by Martine Dreyfus and Caroline Juillard (2004).
This channel is so much better than so many other language channels on RUclips. Thanks for giving us detailed language profiles with grammar breakdowns and example sentences! It’s always so interesting to see other languages and try to contextualize them through comparing them to others. Wolof is fascinating, particularly the stative verbs. The only languages I know are European languages and a little Japanese so to learn about languages from different language families is very interesting. I’m always very interested in non indo European grammar because it’s alway so indicative of how people for extremely different cultures and regions categorize and conceive meaning from the world in such diverse and interesting ways. Keep up the great work, man, we all really appreciate it!
Thank you for the kind words!
Japanese is one of the languages I use regularly. 👍🏼 🇯🇵
Wolof! Bless you
I've never heard of this language before. Thanks for the background and examples. It's fun to learn about languages from your videos.
An interesting clip about a very unknown language. l still remember when in my teens in the 1970s, what might have been the first time l heard about Wolof, when Finnish television, strangely enough, screened a Senegalese movie. A character says to his daughter: Why do you answer me in Wolof, when l ask you something in French?
Whoa, I think, Wolof is the language with the most alien grammatical concepts I've seen so far (on langfocus). I definitely need to rewatch it. Most languages just express one and the same grammatical concepts in different ways, but Wolof seems to introduce wholy new concepts. In comparison, Kiswahili as an example of another African language seems almost straightforward.
Am Wolof and was amazed of my own language. Many things to say
So glad you did this video 🇸🇳🇸🇳 in wolof and i really appreciate your work!
I want to learn Twi, so I can tweet tweets in Twi on Twitter!
Check out Yaw's youtube channel and website then . [ Stephen Awiba (Yaw) , learnakan com ] , I've bought his audio/book package, it's one of the best Twi resources
Twi is pronounced "chee."
@@timsalter5505 No, it's pronounced /tɕᶣi/ , in some pronunciations it's a slightly 'whistled' sounds, I only got to understand how it's pronounced when I've actually met a native speaker demonstrate to me.
Congrats
@@kobikaicalev175 Interesting. I've always heard it's pronounced "chee."
I was planning some years back to be working and living in Senegal and knew Wolof was an important language there, but knew nothing about it, how to speak it, or even how to get started. Of course, the project people were fluent in French and we received a quick French immersion, but nary a mention of Wolof. I learn a bit now from your video. I find it to be a fascinating language and I like the way verbs are standardized and the pronouns take over. This may be hard to learn, but once practiced, would make it not too hard to learn to converse in Wolof. The music in Senegal is so cool too. I very much want to go there sometime. Thanks for another great video.
Another amazing video from paul. I was wondering if you could upload a video on the Faroese language especially. Keep up the great work man 😊
I like it when you delve deep into the grammar, you should do that every time :)
Yes!!!! Another African language.
Yay Paul! I would love to hear about others. I am interesting to hear about Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and Twi
Thank you so much for these videos, Paul. Keep 'em coming!
You’re very welcome!
I did an exchange in Senegal and did my best to learn Wolof but was nowhere near proficient. I mostly got around using French, which I only started to learn upon arriving in Senegal, mixed with Wolof and English.
Totally in love with every your video. Languages are my life(I study Chinese, Japanese and English and I'm an Italian language mother tongue) and you make them very interesting and funny. THANK YOU, PAUL
*I'm an Italian
Or
*Italian is my mother tongue
"I'm an Italian language mother tongue" doesn't work. P.s. I want to learn Italian one day (I know some extreme basics).
Azure Griffin what languages do you speak? italian can be easier to learn if you already speak a similar language
@@benskyddd English, enough German to get my point across, and enough Danish to maybe order a coffee 😅😂
Azure Griffin oh ok😂 i’m learning german and i can tell you there’s not much resemblance to italian, making an exception for some loan words. danish, i have no idea. but i’m sure you will learn italian, just pay attention to grammar because it’s HARD and sometimes even us italians can’t remember all the rules😪
@@benskyddd Italian tenses are a nightmare and the three verb forms, plus all the ways words like "nello" combine... it makes me thankful that German is a little more starightforward in some senses. Also, I can't get when adjectives go before or after a word. Italian's easier for English speakers, and so's Danish.
Danish is what happens when Satan makes German easier for the English speaking population. The grammar is easier... and everything else is Hell. Like French in terms of spelling and with vocal features that make any sane person want to cry. And the counting is dumb. Danish spelling is sorta like "we'll put a letter that uses roughly that part of the mouth. You'll pronounce it right after enough beer."
Ok, I'm being mean, but a Swedish person will joke that he carries a potato in his pocket so he can stick it in his mouth when he encounters a Dane.
My Gambian friends want to teach me Mandinka and Wolof, also gonna learn Indonesian, Balinese, and Javanese from my Indonesian friends. French would be great too.
I'm a Senegalese mandinka I have almost forgotten how to speak my native tongue which is mandinka, wolof is the only language left that I can speak little of with my mom
never forget your language is part of your identity
Wolof has a relly interesting structure. To my eye it looks like the snapshot of a transition from an isolating language towards an agglutinative one.
The pronouns you mention, infact, start looking a lot like detached inflections.
Another job well done, Paul.
I visited beautiful Senegal in 2001 and 2010 for a few months each time. I was told that the schools are in French and the children are punished if they use Wolof or any other native language in school. It seems to me that they are still colonized, and the currency indicates that fact. I feel that the people suffer under puppet governments all over the world postioned to opress the culture and it's people and serve the colonizers still. When I visited the rural areas I got to learn the correct Wolof words for Market, not marche or marse, jubuh, and other ones. When i went back to Dakar I had fun speaking the native words that I had to teach to the locals. Senegalese people had a great sense of humor and appreciation about it. I LOVE SENEGAL and miss it, can't wait to go back ❤️
Am happy that you like my country
I have been living in Smeegal for a few months. Learning Wolof had been such an interesting experience it allows an immense amount of inflection and nuance. I am still struggling with my verb suffixes and proper pronoun choices. However Senegalese wolof speakers are very patient and helpful! Similarities with Haitian Creole are fascinating, especially the use of ak as a meaning both and as well as with.
Glad to see a video on Wolof. I know it from a band called Wock whose song "Sama Amie" was once the theme music to the Paris-Dakar rally. I have their album the song is from.
i only love one song in wolof / English languages called 7 seconds. this is the only wolof experience i have :D
Hey Paul, I see at 3:39 a similar word of "muus", which is "mush" in Tamazight. "muus" and "mush" both mean "cat".
Edit: I found out that in one Tuareg language, which is probably Tamasheq (which also belongs to the Tamazight language branch) cat means "muus" or "moos", so there must be probably a connection here, but who knows?
MANJAGO language please, widely spoken in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Bissau, Cassamance, Mauritania, France and Portugal
Respect and love from Iran.😘😘😘
bah means good in Wolof
baha bah means very good.
@@motherofallemails omg its same how is that possible?😯😯😯
@@amirhosseinbahrami7742 yes, some words that are the same, many European words too are the same!!
Must be from ancient trade.
@@motherofallemails yeah I guess so GOOD NIGHT DEAR FREIND its night here swear dreams.😘🤗😘😘🤗😘🤗
@@motherofallemails sweat*
In Jamaican patois "nyam" meaning eat and "jook" meaning stab/poke are from Wolof too
We lived in Senegal a total of eight years. Wolof is a fun language to speak, once you master the pronouns. And local people appreciate it. An additional benefit of learning Wolof is that you learn so much about Wolof culture that never gets expressed in French. Since we lived a couple of hours inland from Dakar, everyone knew our region by local habits, such as the negative -ult instead of the more usual -u. If you ever remake this video, be sure to have a speaker who grew up in a Wolof village where they still geminate final consonants, e.g., tudd (tudda, not tud), still stretch long vowels, e.g., baax (baaakh, not bak), and still love to hear noun class indicators.
Hey Paul, I literally just watched your Wolof video last night. Today I was confused why youtube suggested it to me again. And look, it's an update!
Man I wish learning languages was easy
Very interesting ! These explanations are a real gold mine for having a solid basis for learning the Wolof language. thanks a lot!
My family is Gambian as I am a Taal and I have always wanted to learn Wolof!