Essential French phrases

The opening move of every interaction, from a taxi to a ministry counter. Senegal is around 97% Muslim and this greeting is universal regardless of your own religion. Skipping it and going straight to your question reads as genuinely rude.

'How are you?' in Wolof. The full ritual runs several exchanges — your health, your family, your household — before anyone mentions business. Budget thirty seconds per person; everything downstream goes better.

Thank you. The reply matters as much as the word: 'ñoo ko bokk' means we hold it in common, which is the whole Senegalese social contract in two syllables.

Hospitality as an obligation rather than a mood — feeding a guest before yourself, giving up your bed. It is on the national football team's name (Lions de la Teranga) and the airline's, and Senegalese take it seriously enough to be quietly offended if you refuse a meal.

Discretion — the duty to cover other people's difficulties rather than expose them. It explains why colleagues will not discuss a neighbour's money trouble, and why loud public complaint about a landlord or an official rarely gets you what escalation would elsewhere.

'Slowly, slowly.' From the proverb ndank-ndank mooy jàpp golo ci ñaay — little by little you catch the monkey in the bush. Deployed at you, kindly, whenever you try to compress a process that will not compress.

A white person or, loosely, a foreigner. Almost never an insult — children shout it cheerfully — but it is also the price signal: 'prix toubab' is what you pay when you have not asked ñaata la in Wolof.

'How much is it?' Ask in Wolof and the first number is usually closer to the real one. Markets, taxis and porters are all negotiable; supermarkets and pharmacies are not.

To hustle, to make a living out of nothing in particular. Named after T. T. Fons's comic-strip everyman, and the honest description of how a large share of Dakar earns its money — several small trades at once rather than one salary.

The three tiers of informal transport: the painted blue-and-yellow minibus being phased out, the white long-distance minibus named after the man who imported them, and an unlicensed private car working a route. All cheaper than a taxi and none of them insured for you.

An emigrant trader, usually Mouride, usually in Italy, Spain or New York. Their remittances are a serious share of the economy and they own a great deal of the new-build housing you will be shown — which is why a landlord may be in Bergamo and the negotiation runs through a cousin.

Broken rice cooked in tomato with fish and vegetables, the national dish. UNESCO inscribed the know-how on its intangible heritage list in December 2021 — and the citation says it originated in the fishing communities of Saint-Louis, which Senegalese will tell you before you ask.

Green tea brewed in three rounds over a small burner — the first bitter, the second balanced, the third sweet, each poured from a height to raise foam. It takes an hour or more, and leaving after the first glass is the local equivalent of hanging up mid-sentence.

Coffee ground with djar (Guinea pepper), sold from thermoses on every corner for around XOF 200. Named for the Mouride holy city and popularised through the brotherhood's networks — a religious economy you can drink.