Particularly this part of the chorus, Iâm unsure how best to transcribe it. My mentor Professor Keita sent me this transcription/translation in French:
Nâalouw(Ă´ mes mères), Diâala salouma(je vous dis), sinaya la gwèlèya magni (la rivalitĂŠ de la polygamie est pĂŠnible), a ma silan ni (et effroyable)
I ni ce, Bruce! Iâve added your request to the Request song lyrics category, so perhaps someday weâll get there
In the meantime, I had a look at Professor KeiĚtaâs transcription/translation and I had a listen to the songâs chorus. So, thank you to KeiĚta-kÉ, because without his initial work, I wouldnât have been able to hear it correctly.
Hereâs what I would propose for standard Latin-based spelling (I have also included a very literal translation for you):
Nalu [OR: N nalu (KeiĚta proposes this, but I donât necessarily hear the N)]
Mothers [OR: âMy mothersâ]
N di aĚ lase alu ma
I transmit to you (the following)
Sinaya la gbÉlÉya man ɲi [OR: Sinaya la gbÉlÉya ma ɲa]
The hardship(s) of co-wifehood isnât good
It seems like it could work, except Iâd take issue with your use of âproblems between co-wivesâ for sinaya la gbÉlÉya (cf. sinaya ka gÉlÉya in Bambara), which is more literally âthe difficulty of co-wifehoodâ.
To me, this could suggest that the chorus is about if/when problems happen to come up in polygamous wifehood situations. But instead I think that that the turn of phrase is actually a more blanket statement about co-wifehood being difficult in a way by nature.