Shocked = Jatigɛra?

I was talking with a friend and I said I saw a certain animal today, then he asked me with what he said meant ‘shocked’ in Bambara, Jatigɛra. I have not seen this word yet.

What is this word/expression and what does it mean?

Hi Malik! What your friend said is not in fact one word, but rather an expression that comes from a combination of words: the noun ja and the verb ka tigɛ (the ka there is the infinitive marker, not a part of the verb itself). The expression therefore would be something like ka mɔgɔ ja tigɛ (literally, 'to cut a person’s ja; ja itself means something like ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’), which would mean something like ‘frighten’ normally.

A lot of expressions can be built by combining verbs with the noun ja actually; the one you found is just one of them :slight_smile:

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