Swahili Notes
I've done a number of jobs in East Africa, Tanzania in particular, so I figure that learning at least a little Swahili is appropriate. I'm only doing about 20 minutes a day, but here are what I've picked up so far. Fortunately, Swahili uses the Latin character set.
Table
of Contents
Language type
Swahili is a language constructed as a “trade language” or Lingua Franca for the region, from some previous languages and the language of coastal (slave-taking) traders from Arabia.
There is a clarity and simplicity to
the grammar as I’m uncovering it, which may be related to this
origin.
Loan words are being imported
currently, and may have been for a long time.
Verbs
Seem (so far – I’m very much a beginner at this) to be very consistent. Most conjugations seem to be a pronoun/prefix and a verb-root (generally the verb’s infinitive, less a leading “ku-”, but there are exceptions). There are a lot of loan-words from Western languages, and probably other loan words I don’t recognise.Present.Simple (I do _____ etc)
|
Person
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
1st
|
Nina______
|
Tuna________
|
|
2nd
|
Una_______
|
Mna________
|
|
3rd
|
Ana_______
|
Wana_______
|
Present.Negator (I do not ____ etc)
|
Person
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
1st
|
Si______
|
Hatu________
|
|
2nd
|
Hu_______
|
Ham________
|
|
3rd
|
Ha_______
|
Hawa_______
|
Present.Possession (I have [noun phrase] etc)
|
Person
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
1st
|
Nina [NP]
|
Tuna [NP]
|
|
2nd
|
Una [NP]
|
(?Mna) [NP]
|
|
3rd
|
Ana [NP]
|
Wana [NP]
|
Present.Possession.Negator (I do not have [noun phrase] etc)
|
Person
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
1st
|
Sina
|
Hatuna
|
|
2nd
|
Huna
|
???
|
|
3rd
|
Hana
|
Hawana
|
Future.Simple (I will do ____ etc)
|
Person
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
1st
|
Nita ____
|
____
|
|
2nd
|
____
|
____
|
|
3rd
|
____
|
____
|
Nouns
Several “families” - the M/Wa (which describes the singular/ plural prefixes), the K/Ki …Articles
Like Russian and the other (?) Slavonic languages, Swahili doesn't use articles ("the", "a" etc.) ; if you're trying to translate from Swahili you need to work out where to put them from context.Singular versus Plural
Mna / Una- Mna is a singular “you” ; una” is a “plural you”. In southern EN_US, this is the “you-all” or “y’all” construction. Is that unusual or inherited somehow? FR has a “tu/ vous” distinction which mixes plurality and seniority. DE has “du/ Sie”.
Other pluralising constructions?
Lots of loan words.
Pronouns
I may have inherited the m/f/n split from German|
Plurality
|
Singular
|
Multiple
|
||
|
1st person |
I
|
Mimi
|
We
|
Sisi
|
|
2nd person |
You
|
|
You
|
Wewe
|
|
3m person |
He
|
|
They
|
|
|
3f person |
She
|
|
They
|
|
|
3n person |
It
|
|
They
|
|
Questioning
[Pronoun][infinitive], so unakunywa is [una][kunywa] "are you (sing.) drinking"Repetition
_________ tena = [do] _________ againWord Order – Possessive pronouns
Noun [possessive pronoun] e.g. wanafunzi [wangu] = the students [of mine]Noun [of] possessor e.g. mlango wa mwalimu = the door of the teacher.
I’m trying to figure out which endings dictate which prefixes.
Suffices (from plurality/ gender) seem related to the prefix of the possessive pronoun
|
Known prefixes
|
Possessive pronoun root
|
English equivalent
|
Comment
(count of prefixes, other) |
|
l-, -m-, y-, w-
|
-angu
|
my
|
4,
|
|
|
yako
|
his
|
1, sometimes -u |
|
w,
|
-ake
|
her
|
0, lost |
|
w-, y-
|
-ake
|
it’s
|
2, sometimes -o |
|
|
yao
|
their
|
0, other uses too? |
|
w-,,y-
|
-etu
|
Our
|
2, |
|
|
wa
ya |
of the
|
varies for M/WA nouns, - maybe for K/KW too |
Trying to work out which ending to use is giving
me a headache.
|
Suffix on previous word
|
possessive prefix
|
|
-cho,
-ea, -wi, |
wa-
w- |
|
-a,
-ji, -ti, |
y-
|
|
-ma
|
na-
ya- |
Word Order
I'm still trying to work this out.Jina lako ni nani baba
Name your / is / what / Grandad
Object / verb / subject / modifier
Cleaning – hard versus soft?
Adverbs
Little used so far.Dictionary
Updated as SwahiliDict.2019-09-21.pdf
Aidan’s
Swahili Notes Page 6
of 6
total.
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