Nkoe
Nkoe,
Nkoe ke phoofolo
E maroborobo;
Ha e bona motho
E ea mo tlolella -- e se mo tlolelletse!
Ea qaqapolotsa
Letlalo la hlooho,
Motho ke bohloko,
A be se a pota...
A batla motoho,
Motoho oa matekoane.
See if you can translate the words in red into English, French or Swahili. I'll symbolically reward the "winner" with two Gmail accounts. How about that?
9 comments:
I am a Gikuyu and Swahili speaker but this one is impossible!
Makes no sense to me, but has something to do with:
An animal….when it sees a person, it jumps
When a person feels pain…she goes around…..she wants food…
Wow, that is pretty good! That deserves a gmail account. Where email address) shall I send the invitation?
Thanks, you can send the gmail invite to malaika_ny AT yahoo.com
Ke a leboha!
But please, you have to give us a translation. I'm dying to know what it means.
The tiger,
The tiger is an animal
With stripes;
When it spots a person
It jumps them -- as it does
Even as we speak!
It takes the skin
Off the head,
Due to the pain,
The victim goes berserk...
And asks for porridge,
Cannabis porridge.
Hi, rethabile. I was listening to a tape that my wife's company uses to teach Sesotho.
Now, I know what pap is in Sesotho, but this tape used (and I didn't see the word, so sorry for spelling) "moparatitane" instead of "motoho".
Now a good Sotho friend pulled a disgusted face, and said that he wouldn't eat that, because it reminds him of a woman's panties!
But he couldn't tell me what could be the meaning of the word. Or its origins.
Any ideas?
I can't say I know what "Moparatitane" would mean. Unless it were "moaparathetana" (spelling, as you said).
"Thetana" is in effect a young girl's traditional skirt. It is worn around the waist and is made of patterned beads.
The first part of the word is "moapara-" or "wearer of-". For example a Mosotho calls him/herself moaparakobo, "kobo" being a blanket.
Moapathethana means "skirt wearer," if you will.
How's things down there in Bloemfontein?
Rethabile,
Your translation is incorrect. Nkoe is a leopard not a tiger. It has spots not stripes. Maroboko is spots.
Mooa Khotla,
Are you sure? For me a leopard is "lengau" and a tiger "nkoe."
Mo-oa-khotla, Rethabile is right. A leopard is "lengau" and a tiger is "nkoe" (e rolo eabo Mphaphathi).
Mopherathethana is a form of pap whose thickness is somewhere between pap and porridge. It was cooked mostly in times of drought to save flour by making the pap just a little less thick.
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