I’d like to translate a lyric from this song in one of my publications:
Kabini furu kera jago bolo ye / A danbe bee banna
Ever since marriage became a form of commerce / It has no dignity anymore
Does this seem like an adequate translation?
Can you provide a link to the song (preferably with the time code embedded in the link if it is YouTube?)
But before listening, I can already offer some corrections so that you respect standard spelling with ɛ:
Kabini furu kɛra jago bolo ye / A danbe bɛɛ banna
Otherwise (and without having listened to the song or the lines in question), your literary translation seems faithful to me. I might use ‘business’ instead of ‘commerce’ to sound more colloquial in English.
Also, next time, if you aren’t requesting the lyrics, but rather have a question about an appropriate translation between Bambara/English, then please post a specific question about a term, expression or structure that you were struggling with in Bambara/Jula-English 
What you asked for here was close to general proof-reading, which isn’t a great fit for the Forum because (quoting from WordReference):
- [The Forum is] organized on a “one topic per thread” principle, but proofreading by definition addresses multiple unrelated errors.
- When there is no specific question, it is impossible to put the keyword(s) in the title of the thread.
I ni ce, karamɔgɔ @BruceWhitehouse !
If I may also chime in… The Zanga School adds lyric videos to their YouTube channel from time to time. Here’s the link to the lyrics and translation of Oumou Sangaré’s “Bi Furu”. Maybe it will be of some added insight?
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I suppose I don’t yet understand the difference between proofreading and song lyrics or general questions. But I will keep posing questions, and beg your forgiveness if I fail to put them in the proper category.
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Thanks very much, Christy - I hope those Bambara lyric spellings don’t drive linguists bonkers!
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