Christy’s recent post about sɛ̀ in the discussion of "An bɛɛ ni sɛ(gɛn) brings up the question of whether one should interpret the common greeting meaning ‘welcome’ as i ni se (where sé is the high tone verb meaning ‘arrive’ or i ni sɛ (where sɛ̀ is a low tone word meaning ‘fatigue’ [which is likely related to sɛ̀gɛn).
I did a little bit of research on the question in the following sources:
-
Bambara corpus: There is one hit of
i ni seand and 36 hits ofi ni sɛ. There 0 hits ofaw ni seand 2 hits ofaw ni sɛ. -
Morales’s book “J’apprends le bambara”: The book uses
i ni se -
Maninka corpus: There are two hits of
i ni sɛin N’ko. There is one hit ofi ni sein Latin. - The Fasokan blog: It includes a post in French and Bambara that explains the expression’s use in context of meetings in the chief of a village’s vestibule and he lists it as i ni sɛ (or i dan ka segin [presumably a fuller form sentence of what is i dansɛ]).
To me, this seems to suggest that the most common interpretation is that it is i ni sɛ.
Any other takes or insights from other sources?