A language class in the dark. Three children in Joal, Senegal, repeat a series of words in Wolof. While they get a taste of the texture and the musicality of the language, a constellation of colour and nuance unfolds. “All the words that I had chosen to be spoken by the Wolof kids have got to do to a some extent with colonization. Wolof has words for different shades of darkness which go from white, via grey, and pale, and darker, not so black , to black and pitch black (that tell a lot about the differences, prejudices, casts and hierarchy in their society). And yet they’ve lost the words for red, yellow, blue and use the French ‘rouge’, ‘jaune’ and ‘bleu’ instead. How can such a rich language have no word for the main colors, while being so sensitive to color at the same time?” (AS)
