Gambian words come from several languages, Mandinka, Wolof, Fula, Jola, and Serahule, braided together with English. Here are the ones you will hear most, and what they carry.
Words for people and places
Toubab. A white person, or any foreigner. Children will sing it after you in the street. It is not an insult; it is a label, and usually a welcome.
The Smiling Coast. The Gambia’s own nickname for itself, for the shape of the country along its river and the warmth of the people on both banks.
Semester. Our word for a Gambian who went abroad and came home, usually for the holidays, usually with new shoes and long stories. Said with love and a little teasing.
Compound. In Gambian English, a family home is several small houses around a shared yard, where an extended family lives openly.
Bantaba. The gathering place, usually a raised platform under a big tree, where the village meets to talk, judge, joke, and pass the afternoon.
Food and drink
Benachin. Literally one pot: rice cooked together with fish or meat and vegetables until every grain tastes of the whole. The Gambian jollof is the reason for many happy arguments.
Domoda. A thick, tangy groundnut (peanut) stew, poured over rice. Comfort in a bowl.
Yassa. Chicken or fish is buried in onions and lime until it gives up and becomes delicious.
Wonjo. A deep-red drink pressed from dried hibiscus flowers, sweet and sharp and served cold.
Ataya. The slow, three-round ritual of brewing strong green tea. The first round is as bitter as life; the last is as sweet as love; and the point was never really the tea; it was the sitting and the talking.
Culture and everyday
Griot, or jali. A hereditary storyteller, praise-singer, and keeper of a family’s history. When you want to know who someone truly is, you ask the jali. My novels are soaked in this world.
Kora. The twenty-one-string harp-lute the griot plays, built from a gourd, a cow skin, and fishing line. It sounds like a harp having a conversation.
Tallin-Tallin. The call that opens a folktale. The teller cries “Tallin-Tallin”; the circle answers “Tallin Diima”; and only then may the story begin.
Insha’Allah. God willing. In a Muslim-majority country, it ends almost every sentence about the future, and it means both faith and a graceful way not quite to promise.
Abaraka. Thank you, in Mandinka—a small word, heavy with warmth.
Language is the first door into a country. If you learn only one of these, learn ataya, because everything good in The Gambia happens while the tea is brewing. Have a favourite Gambian word I left out? Tell me in the comments, and if you love this world, you will find it running throughout my novels and folktales.
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