"Célibataire" by Seydou Chée

[Christy]

Aw ni ce! I need help with two lines in the song “Célibataire” by Seydou Chée. I have asked a few others about it but it still remains as question marks.

1. Here, I need help to correct the transcription and also need help with the best french translation of:

? - N tɛ ka se u/o (s’u/s’o) la de

YouTube timestamp with context:

Musoman caman bɛ fɛ ka kɛ ne denw ba ye

U bɛ n fɛ

Non

N tɛ ka s’u/s’o la de

2. Here, I need help with the best french translation of:

I b’a dɔn k’i ta t’a fɛ

YouTube timestamp with context:

A lajɛ cɛ

Ni i ɲɔgɔn b’u la

Hali n’i y’a ye

I b’a dɔn k’i ta t’a fɛ

[coleman]

Nba! I ni ce @Christy ! I ni fama sa

@Christy

? - N tɛ ka se u/o (s’u/s’o) la de

Based off the little piece of the song with your transcription, I’m guessing that it’s…

“N tɛ ka se u la dɛ” with the oral contraction of the verb to become [n tɛ s’u la dɛ] meaning literally “I am not arriving at them” (as in, “I don’t get near them, man”). If French, I’d go with something literal like Je n’arrive pas auprès d’elles deh.

[coleman]

As for the #2…

@Christy

I b’a dɔn k’i ta t’a fɛ

I am not really sure if this will make sense because I don’t know the context of the song’s overall lyrics, but one interpretation of this would be:

I bɛ à dɔn ko i ta tɛ à fɛ → [I b’à dɔn k’i ta t’à fɛ]

• k’à dɔn = to know sth
• i ta = yours
• X t’à fɛ = He/she/it doesn’t have X (lit. ‘X isn’t with him/her/them’)

So my translation would be ‘You know that he/she/they don’t have yours’ or in French “Tu sais qu’il/elle n’a pas le tien”

[Christy]

Nse! I ni waati! Thanks for chiming in @coleman. I uploaded the lyrics to “Célibataire” by Seydou Chée today.

After several discussions here’s what I decided to go with:

(1)

N tɛ ka s’u la dɛ
I’m not going near them
Je ne vais pas m’approcher d’eux

(2)

I b’a dɔn k’i ta t’a fɛ
You know you don’t have to prove anything to her
Tu sais que tu n’as rien à prouver à elle

[coleman]

I ni baara, Christy! Amazing work and very cool to see the lyrics!

I hope my take helped you a bit!

I had a quick listen/watch and I noticed some small spelling issues

First here:

It’s “A to yen” normally. The word is yen (lit. ‘there’) and not ye.

Also here:

It would be filimu danger-ma-yɔrɔ- (i.e., danger-ma is one word because -ma is the “adjectivizer suffix” for the noun ‘danger’; then it is single compound word fused with yɔrɔ); but the question of how to write a French loanword [danger] that is fully integrated into a Bambara word like that is variable/tricky. Normally, if it were a word like nafa ‘utility’ than it would be ‘nafamayɔrɔ’ in Bambara).

N ka foli b’i ye hali bi!