“A Dan Rather Reports producer needs immediate assistance translating Kinyarwanda to English for a television news piece currently in production. This is a paid assignment. If you are fluent in Kinyarwanda and English - or know some who is - please contact [retracted] ASAP!”
Upon investigation into a job I’ll never have, I am finding that Kinyarwanda is a stellar language. Bananas is said “imineke”, hot chili is “urusenda,” and When Will the Food Be Ready? is “Bigeze he?” I’m starting with only essential words first.
CORRECTION!: Before, I wrote that “I believe this is the exact origin of the breakdown in the middle of “All Night Long (All Night),” which was wrong, as “Jambo” is indeed a Rwandan phrase BUT Lionel Richie apparently just made the damn thing up. According to my certified fact-checker M, Richie has said this: “I called the UN and said ‘I need something African for the breakdown in this song I’m writing.’ They informed me that there are thousands of different African dialects. I couldn’t believe it. One region doesn’t have any idea what the other is taking about. So, ‘Tambo liteh sette mo-jah!’? I made it up on the spot. Now I think that ‘Jambo’ might have a meaning in Swahili (it does- “hello”), but you gotta be careful because it might mean ‘welcome’ in one dialect and you might get your head cut off for saying it in another.”
Not great, Lionel.
