West African French, quoi

The more time I spend around French people (or other Europeans who speak French) the more I realize I speak very West African French. And evidently the mélange with local languages is even more noticeable in Côte d'Ivoire. 

On est ensemble, the subject of my last entry, is a quintessential West African French phrase having largely to do with the fact that it represents the Neighborhood Watch aspect to the culture here. It’s not really used in France in this sense, probably because the system of solidarity isn’t as strong in the West (I know, I know, France is in fact north northeast of Mali).

Présentement  is widely used to say "currently" but French people find it awkward. Maybe this too is a result of me using the equivalent to "presently". Usually, when searching for a word I don’t know, I say the english word with French pronunciation (especially if the word is more than 3 syllables long) and it works. In this case, it doesn’t.

On est où là ? Literally meaning "One is where ?", has become a greeting or a way to warm up a crowd. It doesn’t really mean anything. But it became popular in the West African hour of guests and music on RFI at 21H10 because the Sénégalese host uses it profusely. 

Peinturer  in West African French means "to paint". However, they took the actual verb peindre and made it into an easy to congugate regular –er verb. So instead of being lazy and saying Le nouveau maire a coupé tous les arbres dans la cour de la mairie et peinturé le batiment conformément à son hôtel (true story), you should say Le maire a peint la mairie desagréablement.

Often, to designate an event or action that has not happened yet but is expected to happen, West Africans say, Je n’ai pas fini à préparer d’abord. I thought this was perfectly acceptable French. It is not. I have now learned that the construction comes from Bambara (or the more widely spoken sister language of Dioula), in which for an action that has not yet occured you simply tack on folo to the end of the sentence. Folo translates best to d’abord. But, a proper French housewife would use encore to say she has not yet finished cooking : Je n’ai pas encore fini à préparer. 

Quoi is added at the end of phrases so often it's become a habit, quoi. Similar to "like" in English. While watching Bienvenue Chez les Chtis, I found that it is also used in this north northwestern French dialect. To the point where a southerner gets quite confused and the two actors get into a loop much like a "Who's on First?" bit. Quoi literally means "what" and therefore, with the intonation of the Chtis, it is as if you are always asking a question rather than confirming a statement. Here, there is no confusion over intonation, so it becomes an extraneous word at the end of phrases, as in, Je vais terminer ici, quoi.