Language/Wolof/Grammar/Gender

Wolof lacks gender-specific pronouns: there is one word encompassing the English 'he', 'she', and 'it'. The descriptors bu góor (male / masculine) or bu jigéen (female / feminine) are often added to words like xarit, 'friend', and rakk, 'younger sibling' in order to indicate the person's gender.

For the most part, Wolof does not have noun concord ("agreement") classes as in Bantu or Romance languages. But the markers of noun definiteness (usually called "definite articles" in grammatical terminology) do agree with the noun they modify. There are at least ten articles in Wolof, some of them indicating a singular noun, others a plural noun. In "City Wolof" (the type of Wolof spoken in big cities like Dakar), the article “bi” is often used as a generic article when the actual article is not known; it is the singular definite article and the plural is “yi”.

Any loan noun from French or English uses –bi –- butik-bi, xarit-bi, 'the boutique, the friend'

Most Arabic or religious terms use –ji -- jumma-ji, jigéen-ji, 'the mosque, the girl'

Nouns referring to persons typically use -ki -- nit-ki, nit-ñi, 'the person, the people'

Miscellaneous articles: si, gi, wi, mi, li, yi.

Source

http://publish.illinois.edu/wolof201fall14/files/2014/08/NEW_WOLOF_BOOK.pdf

Related Lessons

• Negation
• Plural Nouns — Definite articles
• Notable characteristics
• Pronouns and How to ask questions
• Nouns
• Conditional
• Plural Nouns — Indefinite article
• The possessive expressed by “U”
• Am (to have) in the present tense
• Conjugation