In case you ever need to talk about “Extremely Bad Cough” in Mandinka….

 In this post, I wrote out the little presentation I gave on Tuberculosis in Boutilimite. Translated literally, “Tooto Jawo” means “Extremely Bad Cough” in Mandinka.

I’ve tried to translate the presentation as literally as I could, so that you can get a sense of how Mandinka people think about the world. When necessarily, I put some additional words in brackets so that the translated text makes sense.

Remember that Mandinka isn’t really a written language: how words are spelled doesn’t matter as much as how words are pronounced. The text below should give you a decent idea of what Mandinka sounds like, if you sound out the words out loud.

N’naata jang ka tooto jawo kacha la. (I’ve come here to talk about Tuberculosis.)

Toto jawo jankaridingo ka sii siso kono. (Tuberculosis [-causing] bacteria live in the lungs.)

Mune mu tamanserolu ti? Saasato ka tooto baké. Ning tooto tambita lun tang ning lulu. Waati do, saasato daajiyo ka yelo soto. (What are the symptoms? The sick person will cough a lot. This cough will last longer than 15 days. Sometimes, his saliva (mucus) will have blood in it.)

Ka tooto jawo tanka, bungolu nyanta yele la le. Fonyo ning tilo nyanta dung na bungolu. Saasato mang nyana daajiyo tupi la daa wo daa. A nyanta daajiyo tupi la poto kono, wala musoir kono. (To protect yourself against tuberculosis, the rooms in your house must be open. Wind and sun must enter the rooms. The sick person must not spit everywhere. He must spit in a pot or a handkerchief.)

Ning nya taamanserolu jee moo kono, I nyanta fo la wo moo yé ayé taa jara bungo. Ning I futata jara bungo to, doctoro be ila daajio juube la masino to, fo jankaridingo be jee. (If you see these symptoms in people, you should tell that person to go to the Centre de Santé. When you go to the Centre de Santé, a doctor will look at your spit [mucus] under a microscope, [to see] if bacteria are there.)

Tooto jawo ka moo faa la, bari ning I taata juna jara bungo to, aning I yé borro ming kunke, I be kendeya la. (Tuberculosis can kill people, but if you go to the Centre de Santé early, and if you take your medication correctly, you will be cured).