Class 9: The Class With No Prefix (n-)

01

What Belongs Here

It is the largest class, and the one nearly every borrowed word has landed in, from Arabic, English, Portuguese and Hindi alike.

• habari - news
• kazi - work
• siku - day
• nyumba - house
• teksi - taxi
• kompyuta - computer

Some class 9 nouns do begin with n-, ny- or m-: nyumba house, ndizi banana, mvua rain. That is an old prefix which has grown into the word. There is no shorter form underneath it, and you never take it off.

02

The Verb Begins with i-

Learn this one first, because it turns up in almost every sentence. When a class 9 noun is the one doing something, its verb starts with i-.

• Teksi inasubiri.

  The taxi is waiting.

That verb is three pieces stacked into a single word.

• i- the subject, it — the class 9 piece
• -na- happening now
• subiri the verb itself, wait

Swahili has no separate word for it, so those two words are already a whole sentence.

• Mvua inanyesha!

  It is raining!

• Ina umri gani?

  How old is it?

The i- stays put when the tense changes; only the piece behind it moves. i-na- is now, i-li- the past, i-ta- the future, i-me- done and still true.

• Hii imetokeaje?

  How did this happen?

03

The Linking Word Is ya

Where the verb takes i-, the little words that hang on the noun take y-, and they follow the noun rather than coming before it.

• ya - of
• yangu - my
• yako - your
• yake - his, her
• yetu - our

• Habari yako?

  How are you?

• Hii ni siku yako ya kwanza kazini?

  Is this your first day at work?

Three class 9 markers stand in that sentence, hii, yako and ya, and every one of them is there because of siku day.

04

Adjectives Change Their First Sound

Class 9 once put a nasal n- in front of its adjectives. The nasal has fused with whatever sound came after it, so the adjective looks different rather than longer. Learn these as whole words.

• -zuri good becomes nzuri
• -baya bad becomes mbaya
• -pya new becomes mpya
• -ema fine becomes njema
• -ingi much, many becomes nyingi
• -gumu hard becomes ngumu

An adjective that already begins with k, t or s takes nothing at all, and neither do the many borrowed from Arabic: kubwa big, tamu sweet, ghali expensive.

• Leo ni siku mbaya.

  Today is a bad day.

• Nina familia kubwa.

  I have a big family.

05

Living Things Break the Rule

A class 9 noun that is alive is handled as a person instead: the verb takes a- for one and wa- for several, and the adjective follows.

• Rafiki yangu anafanya kazi ofisini.

  My friend works in an office.

• Kuna samaki wengi baharini.

  There are many fish in the sea.

samaki fish is a class 9 noun, yet it takes wengi and not nyingi. Notice too that rafiki keeps yangu while its verb has moved to a-; the two do not always shift together.

06

Pointing at a Class 9 Noun

• hii - this
• hiyo - that, or the one just mentioned
• ile - that one over there

• Unaweza kufungua chupa hii?

  Can you open this bottle?

• Unaweza kunionyesha picha hiyo?

  Can you show me that picture?

07

The Object Marker Is -i-

A class 9 thing can also be on the receiving end of the verb, and then it goes inside the word as -i-, in the slot between the tense and the stem. Once it is there, the noun itself can be dropped.

• Siipendi.

  I do not like it.

• si- I do not
• -i- it, the class 9 piece
• pendi like

• Hawaioni, lakini wanaisikia.

  They cannot see it, but they can hear it.

Neither sentence names the thing at all. That -i- is its only mention, and the shape of it is what tells you a class 9 noun is meant.