Entry:
to be late
Gloss:
Waati ye X minɛ
Example:
Waati ye n minɛ!
Lit. ‘Time grabbed me!’
Notes:
There isn’t a good one-to-one translate for the idea of “being late”, but the expressions Waati ye X minɛ can work.
In N’ko texts, one also finds the verb k'à dòondi (‘to delay something’), but I have never heard anything similar in Bambara or Jula. In the Maninka dictionary of Moussa Bamba, there is no verb like k'à dòondi and I can’t find any other word that translates the concept of being “late” or “not on time”.
Source:
Bailleul’s French-Bambara dictionary.