N'Kanou by Petit Kandia and Faty Kouyaté - trilingual Bambara/Malinké/Soussou?

Is it just me or are 3 Mandé languages used in this song? Petit Kandia is a Malinké griot from Guinea, Faty Kouyaté is from Mali.
In any case, cool how they mix languages! Many Guinean songs are both in Soussou and Malinké these days.

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Depends on what you mean by “Mandé”.

For linguists, “Mande” refers to a large linguistic family with languages that are not mutually intelligible, but related (e.g., Manding varieties like Bambara, Maninka/Malinké, Jula, Mandinka, but also Soninke, Susu, Bissa, etc. This is similar to the idea of “Germanic” languages including English, German and Swedish.)

“Manding”, on the other hand, refers to the generally mutually intelligible varieties like Bambara, Maninka, Jula and Mandinka.

So, for me, as a linguist, this song includes multiple “Mande” languages, and yes, it is very cool :slight_smile:

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