Unit 1

A.  Greeting forms

B.  Imperatives

C.  The Verb Structure

D.  Independent Personal Pronouns

E.   Possessive Pronouns

F.   Demonstrative Pronouns

G.  The Verb ‘to be’

H.  The Verb ‘to have’

I.   Nouns

J.  Agreement With Adjectives

A.   Greetings 

There are two forms used in greetings, jambo and habari. The form jambo is used in opening greetings while habari is used in subsequent exchanges of greetings. The literal translation of jambo is ‘matter’, ‘thing’, ‘affair.’ As it can be seen in section one of the dialogues, the form jambo is used with specific prefixes.

The prefixes are also the negative forms of each of the persons. Thus when someone says hujambo, it literally means ‘you have nothing the matter with you (i.e. you are fine).’ The response sijambo is an affirmation which literally means ‘I have no news (I am fine).’  

Habari literally means ‘news.' Thus, habari gani means ‘what news do you have (i.e. how are things).’ In section one, in the conversations, we have habari za hapa ‘how are things here’, habari za safari ‘how was your trip.’ The form habari can be used when asking about people (habari za baba), about the home (habari za nyumbani), about classes (habari za masomo) and so forth.  

B. Imperatives

The imperative verb form is used in a command, a request or an appeal. It is always directed to the second person singular wewe ‘you’ or the plural ninyi ‘you all.' There are two types of imperatives, the simple direct command and the polite form of command.  

The simple direct command is one in which the verb stem alone is used when addressing one person, or a plural ending is added when addressing more than one. Both types are used in the dialogues.

When these are used, the relationship between the speaker and the hearer is considered less formal and often requires the polite form tafadhali ‘please’ to make it formal and polite. Alternatively the subjunctive form of the verb is used.  For example:

ukae  you sit   karibu ukae  welcome, (you) have a sit)

mkae  you all sit   karibuni mkae welcome (you all), have a sit 

The structure of the subjunctive verb consists of the second person subject pronoun (singular or plural), the verb root -ka - and the subjunctive form -e. Most speakers prefer the less formal imperative forms plus the polite form tafadhali. For example:

Karibu, kaa tafadhali instead of Karibu ukae 

C. The verb structure 

The verb in Kiswahili looks like one word but it has may pieces which constitute the grammatical structure of the verb. Let’s take an example from the text. 

The shape of the verb prefix is determined by the class of the noun. Here the noun ‘child’ belongs to class one singular nouns (humans and animals). The tense will change depending on the time of the action/process. We will learn the other tenses later.

For all Bantu words, the final vowel in declarative sentence is a. Some borrowed words can end in e i, or u. For example these words borrowed from Arabic: samehe forgive, fikiri think, shukuru give thanks. The final vowel is also called mood marker. As a mood marker it can also change to either i = negative (in the present tense only: for example, anasema he/she speaks=> hasemi => he/she does not speak) or e subjunctive (discussed above). This will be brought up again later.  

D.  Independent Personal Pronouns

These are:  

Any of the remaining pronouns can be used to substitute. For example:

E.  Possessive Pronouns

The possessive pronoun stems are: 

They take the appropriate prefix from the noun it is associated with. This will become cleared later as used in the examples that follow below. 

F.  Demonstrative pronouns

In this unit, three demonstratives are used: huyu, huko, and hapa. Others will be introduced as they appear in later units and lessons. The demonstrative huyu, which translates to ‘this’, can be used to refer to objects that are animate. Thus:

When the demonstrative comes before the noun, the word order in the translation should  be:   

 this is + noun:  Huyu ni kaka yangu mdogo  this is my small (younger) brother

When the demonstrative follows the noun it should be: this +noun is:  ) Kaka huyu ni mdogo   this brother is small (young) . 

Both hapa and huko make reference to locations. While hapa makes reference to a location near the speaker, huko refers to a location away from the speaker. It can also mean a place near the hearer. In translations, hapa is ‘here’ and huko is ‘there’. Thus: 

(i) Hapa ni nyumbani.   Here is home.

(ii) Huko ni mjini.  There (where I am not) is (in) the town.  

G.  The verb’to be’

In Swahili the verb to be is kuwa. But this is only used with the past and future tenses. The present tense form is ni which is used in the text and Mazungumzo 3.  

Examples:

a. Mimi ni baba.  I am (a/the) father.  

b. Wewe ni mama.  You are (a/the) mother.

c. Yeye ni mzee.  He is (an/the) old man.  

There are no definite and indefinite articles in Kiswahili. So baba may mean a/the father. It is often easy for Kiswahili learners to figure out, from context, the appropriate article for the English translations. 

H.  The Verb ‘to have’

There is no verb in Kiswahili meaning ‘to have’ , ‘to possess’. Where, for example other languages express possession, Kiswahili uses a form that implies ‘being with’ , being associated with.  In this unit it is used with the noun familia as in familia .ina watu watano. ‘the family has five people.’ Below are additional examples of the verb ‘to have’ used with present time.  

a. Mimi nina kaka mkubwa.  I have an older brother.  

b. Omar ana miaka mitano.  Omar has five years/is five years old.   

 I.   Nouns

One of the identifying characteristics of Bantu languages is a system of NOUN CLASSES. These classes have been designated in various ways.   Nouns and noun classes will be handled as they appear in the reading texts. For example, in this unit, we have nouns which refer to living beings and non-living beings. Nouns which refer to humans and animals fall into two groups. One group is characterized by the prefix m indicating the singular form and wa for the plural. Examples from the text for these nouns include:

This group of nouns is also identified as class 1 & 2 nouns. Class 1 refers to the singular nouns and class 2, their plurals. The second group does not bear any distinguishing marker and context is used to disambiguate.  

These nouns are often included in a class with nouns whose singular and plural forms are not distinguishable. The class is often referred to as class 9 & 10 nouns (to be discussed later). However, as it will become evident later, nouns like baba, mama, dada, and other nouns referring to animals behave like the nouns designated class 1 & 2 or m – wa and not like nouns in class 9 & 10 in which they are often listed in different grammars of Kiswahili might show. One noun which refers to living beings but remains in class 9 &10 is familia ‘family.’)  

J.   Agreement with Adjectives

The noun classes require a system of ‘agreement.’  This means that in a sentence, the noun must agree with all other words like the verb, adjective, possessives, prepositions, and demonstratives.   For example (underlined are the prefixes):

In this section we came across two adjective forms: dogo ‘small’ and kubwa ‘big/older’. Let us pair them up with nouns in class 1 & 2

 (a) Singular

Notice that the adjective takes a m- prefix regardless of whether the noun has a prefix m-.or not. Thus the agreement prefix for adjectives associated with nouns in m - wa or class 1 & 2 or nouns that refer to humans or other living beings is m-. 

(b) Plural

-dogo/ -kubwa  

With the noun familia ‘family’ the pattern is as follows.

-dogo    -kubwa

familia  ndogo    kubwa 

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