A cura di @Ghiaccio.

Hookii è una parola della lingua fula. Il fula è un continuum dialettale che si estende per una ventina di stati dell’Africa occidentale e centrale, parlato come prima lingua dalle persone di etnia fulani, popolazione tradizionalmente nomade composta da circa 20-25 milioni di individui. Il fula è noto con vari nomi: fulah in inglese, peul in francese e pulaar, pular e fulfulde nei vari dialetti fula.
La parola hookii fu scelta come nome di questo sito in seguito alla diffusione dell’articolo dell’Economist Cookies, caches and cows, che racconta di alcune traduzioni notevoli di termini tecnologici. In particolare il senegalese Ibrahima Sarr, che guidava la localizzazione di Firefox in lingua fula, scelse hookii come traduzione del termine crash:

Ibrahima Sarr, a Senegalese coder, led the translation of Firefox into Fulah, which is spoken by 20m people from Senegal to Nigeria. “Crash” became hookii (a cow falling over but not dying); “timeout” became a honaama (your fish has got away)

Contattato da un utente di hookii, Ibrahima Sarr si è dichiarato abbastanza divertito della scelta e ha spiegato il significato del termine, che indica il momentaneo stato di immobilismo a cui va incontro una mucca che ha subito un forte stress:

When cows are stressed out by some external cause (usually human activity like trying to catch one or trying to save them when they are stuck in muddy water), the became stiff, with eyes wide-open and don’t move for a while: they are hookii (adjective) and usually thats lasts about 2 or 3 minutes before they recover naturally from that hookre (noun).

In aggiunta, ha fornito un audio della corretta pronuncia della parola hookii. La vicenda è stata raccontata da lui stesso su pulaagu.com, il portale per la promozione della lingua fula che lui stesso gestisce.

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Hookii is a word of the Fula language. Fula is a dialect continuum that stretches across many countries in West and Central Africa. It’s spoken as first language by the Fula people, a population of nomadic tradition numbering 20-25 million people in total. Fula is known also as Fulah, Peul (in French), Pulaar, Pula and Fulfulde (in the Fula language).
This site was named hookii following the spread of the article Cookies, caches and cows of the Economist:

Ibrahima Sarr, a Senegalese coder, led the translation of Firefox into Fulah, which is spoken by 20m people from Senegal to Nigeria. “Crash” became hookii (a cow falling over but not dying); “timeout” became a honaama (your fish has got away)

Few days ago we got in touch with Ibrahima Sarr. He said that he was quite amused that hookii is used to name a website. Then he explained the meaning of the word hookii:

When cows are stressed out by some external cause (usually human activity like trying to catch one or trying to save them when they are stuck in muddy water), the became stiff, with eyes wide-open and don’t move for a while: they are hookii (adjective) and usually thats lasts about 2 or 3 minutes before they recover naturally from that hookre (noun).

Besides, he provided a recording with the correct pronunciation of hookii and wrote about this story on pulaagu.com, a site that promotes the Fula language on the Internet.

 

Immagine by ILRI (N’Dama herd in West Africa) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons