Learn about Swahili sentence structure
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| Michael: How are sentences structured in Swahili? |
| Gertrude: And are the rules rigid? |
| Michael: At SwahiliPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Ben Lee, a foreign-exchange student, is walking with a friend at Nairobi City's international airport, when he thinks he sees a famous Kenyan actor. He gestures to his friend, Grace Njenga, who then notices the celebrity and responds: |
| "I know him! That's Mwala!" |
| Ben Lee: Huyo ni Mwala! Namjua! |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Huyo ni Mwala! Namjua! |
| Grace Njenga: Namjua, pia! |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Huyo ni Mwala! Namjua! |
| Michael: "I know him! That is Mwala!" |
| Grace Njenga: Namjua, pia! |
| Michael: "I know him, too! " |
Lesson focus |
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| Michael: In this lesson, we will talk about sentence structure in Swahili, or |
| Gertrude: Muundo wa sentensi ya Kiswahili. |
| Michael: The basic word order in a Swahili sentence is Subject-Verb-Object—just like in English. For example, in this sentence: |
| Gertrude: Ninakunywa chai. |
| Michael: "I am drinking tea." Here, the subject pronoun is |
| Gertrude: Ni, |
| Michael: then the verb tense prefix, which in this case is present tense, is indicated by |
| Gertrude: na |
| Michael: After that, we have the verb for ‘drinking,' |
| Gertrude: kunywa |
| Michael: followed by the object, which is ‘tea,' or |
| Gertrude: chai. |
| Michael: Let us try another example of a simple S-V-O sentence: |
| Gertrude: Ninasoma kitabu. |
| Michael: ‘I am reading a book.' |
| Michael: Like the previous example, we started with the subject and added the present tense, to get |
| Gertrude: Nina |
| Michael: meaning ‘I am.' Then comes the verb, ‘reading', |
| Gertrude: soma |
| Alisah: and finally the object, ‘a book'. |
| Gertrude: kitabu. |
| Michael: However, in Swahili, word order is actually relatively flexible. While Swahili is classified as a subject-verb-object word order, this order does not need to be observed as strictly as in English. This is because, in English, meaning depends almost entirely on word order. In Swahili, however, the forms that are used for each of the words carry a lot of grammatical information. |
| In Swahili, the subject, verb, and object can be expressed in one word. For example, |
| Gertrude: Nitawaamsha |
| Michael: which means ‘I will wake them up.' Even if they're not combined into one word, though, you must put the proper affixes into the verb. The affixes mark not only the person, but also the subject or object position. |
| This means that sometimes you will see various word categories appearing at the beginning, middle or at the end of a sentence. This is more prominent in spoken language. This order may change to emphasise certain parts of the sentence, since the verb is inflected to indicate the subject and sometimes also the object. In other words, Swahili speakers sometimes like to put the most important information at the beginning of a sentence. |
| For example, in this sentence: |
| Gertrude: Sahani imevunjwa na mtoto |
| Michael: Literally, "the plate is broken by a child." In English, it would sound a little awkward to structure a sentence with the object first, but, in Swahili, it is fine. |
| To demonstrate the various ways that a single sentence can be structured, we have a great example for you. |
| We will use the sentence: "Juma has built a house roof." |
| Gertrude: Juma ameijengea nyumba paa, |
| Michael: and we will try out three other ways to say it, using the same words! First, |
| Gertrude: Nyumba, Juma ameijengea paa, |
| Michael: "The house Juma has built a roof." Or, we can say |
| Gertrude: Paa, Juma ameijengea nyumba. |
| Michael: "The roof, Juma has built for a house." Finally, we could also say it like this: |
| Gertrude: Ameijengea nyumba paa, Juma. |
| Michael: "He has built for a house roof, Juma." |
| Believe it or not, each one of these sentences is acceptable in Swahili. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Ben Lee says, "I know him! That's Mwala?" |
| Gertrude as Ben Lee: Huyo ni Mwala! Namjua! |
| Michael: In Swahili, Ben Lee decided to say this phrase first: |
| Gertrude: Huyo ni Mwala! |
| Michael: ‘That's Mwala.' The first word, |
| Gertrude: Huyo |
| Michael: means ‘that one.' The word |
| Gertrude: ni |
| Michael: means ‘is,' and |
| Gertrude: Mwala |
| Michael: is the name of a famous Kenyan celebrity. In the dialogue, Ben Lee said that phrase first, and this one second: |
| Gertrude: Namjua! |
| Michael: which means ‘I know him.' Let's now focus on this second phrase. Instead of following the usual subject-verb-object formula, this one-word phrase literally translates to ‘Him I know,' which means the object has come first. Let's break it down: |
| Gertrude: Na |
| Michael: is the verb tense prefix, or marker, that tells us this is in the present tense. |
| Gertrude: m |
| Michael: is the object pronoun for ‘him,' and |
| Gertrude: jua |
| Michael: is the verb ‘to know.' |
| You might have noticed there is no subject mentioned. In Swahili sentences, verbs may be used without explicitly specifying the subject or the object with nouns or pronouns. So, in this example, the implied subject |
| Gertrude: Mimi |
| Michael: or ‘I,' has been dropped. That is quite normal in spoken Swahili. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Grace Njenga says, "I know him, too?" |
| Gertrude as Grace: Namjua, pia! |
| Michael: In the conversation, Ben and Grace say slightly different versions of the sentence, "I know him!" Grace adds another word, |
| Gertrude: pia. |
| Michael: which is the word for ‘too'. Adding an adverb at the end of a sentence like this is also something we do in English. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we have learned that, although the subject-verb-object structure is dominant in Swahili, the words can be moved around rather freely. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: Word order in questions is also very easy. Unlike English, there is no need to rearrange the words to create a question sentence. In Swahili, intonation is used to differentiate a question from a statement. So, all you have to do is change your intonation! In this way, you can make the sentence interrogative. For example: |
| Gertrude: Unaenda nyumbani. |
| Michael: "You are going home." When you change the intonation, this statement can become a question. Like this: |
| Gertrude: Unaenda nyumbani? |
| Michael: "You're going home?" |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Gertrude: Kwaheri! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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