Hi at all!
I am Marion from germany. I am married to a man from ivory Coast. His local language is malinke. I want to know what is the right writing of, I love you much, in malinke. My husband is not good in writing malinke because he was only learning from listening to it. In the past he was writing down I love you means, ikadinye mifer. I just wanna know if this is written right. I was searching for the words in the internet but I didn’t find any translations for it.
It would be nice if someone can help me out.
Hello Marion,
Yes, to say “I love you” you can say I ka di n ye or “n b’i fɛ”. To say “much” or “a lot” you can just add at the end kosɛbɛ, or kojugu to say “too much” or “so much”.
@malikdiallo’s two suggestions actually match what your husband wrote down in his own way (“Ikadinye mifer”):
I ka di n ye (lit. ‘You are pleasing to me’)
N b’i fɛ (lit. ‘I want you’ or ‘I am with you’)
Both are common ways to express the idea of loving someone. I’d also add the option of I ko ka di n ye or I ko duman n ye (both literally mean, ‘Your affair is pleasing to me’)
If your husband is specifically “Malinké” (AKA Maninka) then he might also say N y’i fɛ instead of N b’i fɛ. Using bɛ is more Bambara/Jula than Maninka, but it can depend on where he is from or what form of the language he grew up. Based off his writing though, it sounds like N b’i fɛ works just fine for him!
