At the moment, I deal with the word jina/djina. My friends in Mali told me, that the plural of jina is jine. According what I learn up to now, this sounds strange to me. Would please someone tell me the proper plural for jina?
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I ni ce!
The word jinɛ (in standard Bambara spelling; it can also be pronounced jina; it is often written that way in Jula and Maninka as well) meaning “jinn; genie” is made plural like any other Bambara/Jula noun; by adding -w.
jinɛ “djinn”
→
jinɛw 'djinns"
You can see the singular and plural form of the word written 100s of times in the Bambara Reference Corpus:
The word comes from Arabic. So perhaps your friends are trying to guess at the singular/plural of the Arabic original? Or perhaps someone was trying to spell the pronunciation distinction out but wasn’t able to do it in a way that is legible to us?
Hope that helps!
Dear Coleman!
Thank you very much for your fast reply. Your explanation helps a lot. Thanks!
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