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I was tweeting my friends from South Africa, asking if any of them knew how to speak Wolof. It’s the language spoken in Senegal (located in West Africa), but I didn’t know anyone from there so I figured they would be my next best shot. I needed to understand what “Lane-la?” meant, since it’s the very last statement/expression of Mariama Ba’s Scarlet Song- the novel that I’d be reporting on tomorrow.
Hours later and my SA friends replied telling me that they don’t know but they can ask around. Then I get another tweet from @hadjibeye, a total stranger nonetheless a REAL Senegalese, who speaks Wolof fluently, telling me that “Lane-la” means “what is it” or “what’s going on.” The funny thing is when I looked at my book again, I saw that it was actually already pre-translated! And yes, it really means “what is it.”
I am only blogging about this because I just find it sooooo cool that I now know someone from Senegal just because of a small thing that I overlooked. Below are his tweets in reply to mine. I am just so happy I now have a twitter friend who is from the place that I’m hoping to visit someday!
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