Wolof Numbers & Money
In Senegal they use the franc CFA (Communauté financière d’Afrique). But the traditional unit of currency is the dërëm which is counted by fives. Usually when dealing with money most people will deal strictly with the French terms for simplicity. If Wolof is used the dërëm is implied if not specifically said. So in the example below junni is 5000, not 1000, even though dërëm has been left off.
teemeeri dërëm = 500 CFA
(100 x 5 = 500)
ñaari teemeeri dërëm = 1000 CFA
(2 x 100 x 5 = 1000)
ñetti teemeeri dërëm = 1500 CFA
(3 x 100 x 5 = 1500)
juróom benni teemeeri dërëm = 3000 CFA
(5 + 1 x 100 x 5 = 3000)
juróom ñetti teemeeri dërëm = 4000 CFA
(5 + 3 x 100 x 5 = 4000)
junni = 5000 CFA
(1000 x 5 = 5000)
I do not know if this is common or just happened to be the people I was around but instead of, for example, saying ‘fifteen hundred‘ as we might say in the USA for 1500, they would say ‘one thousand five hundred‘. Also CFA is pronounced like ‘see-uff-uh‘ almost like ‘safer‘ with an odd accent.
Janga Wolof 
now that i think about it maybe it was that they were saying like ‘thirty hundred’ instead of like ‘three thousand’? all i can remember is that whatever it was they didn’t understand me when i would say it the way i normally would…also maybe a better pronunciation for cfa would be ‘see-yuff-uh’ while running all the syllables together like one word.
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