Noun Classes: The Idea — Swahili Grammar

Swahili sorts every noun into a group called a class. English marks almost nothing on its nouns, and German and Spanish mark two or three genders; Swahili has about fifteen classes in daily use, and they reach much further. The class of a noun decides the shape of the adjective describing it, the number counting it, the word owning it, the word pointing at it, and the verb it belongs to.

One Noun, Many Echoes

Most classes are visible on the noun itself, as a syllable on the front. child carries m-, book carries ki-, trees carries mi-. Every word that goes with that noun then repeats the same syllable.

Kiti changu kimevunjika.
My chair has broken.

Both of the other words carry the ki- of chair. The possessive is and not , and the verb is ki-me-vunjika, it has broken.

Teksi inasubiri.
The taxi is waiting.

taxi is in a different class, so its verb begins i- instead. Change the noun and the sentence changes shape around it.

The Plural Is a Different Class

A Swahili noun has no plural ending. It moves into a different class instead, with a different prefix and a different set of echoes. That is what a dictionary means when it lists a noun as m-/wa- or ki-/vi-: it is giving you both classes at once.

child becomes children
book becomes books
tree becomes trees

Mwanamume anakula.
The man is eating.
Watoto wanapanda basi.
The children are getting on the bus.

The verb moves with the noun: a-na-kula for one person, wa-na-panda for several.

Meaning Only Half Predicts the Class

Some classes are tidy. Words for people are almost all in one, and every infinitive is in another. Elsewhere the grouping is a matter of history rather than logic, and the class simply has to be learned along with the word. Learn each noun together with its plural and you fix both classes at once.

People are class 1, and their plurals class 2.
Trees, plants and many long objects are class 3, with plurals in class 4.
Tools, languages and small things are class 7, with plurals in class 8.
Most borrowed words sit in class 9, whose plural, class 10, looks identical to it.

Why It Is Worth the Effort

The echoes are not decoration. When a sentence holds two nouns, they are what tells you which one the verb belongs to, and often they are the only thing telling you whether a noun means one or many.

Ndizi moja inatosha.
One banana is enough.
Ndizi mbili zinatosha.
Two bananas are enough.

The noun banana is identical in both, because its class has no separate plural form. Only i- against zi- on the verb tells you the number.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Swahili course

468 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 1. A few of them, with the words “Noun Classes: The Idea” is about in bold:

Huyu ni rafiki yangu, Anna. Yeye ni mwanafunzi.
This is my friend, Anna. She is a student.
Lesson 2
Nina magari mawili, baiskeli mbili, na pikipiki tatu.
I have two cars, two bicycles, and three motorbikes.
Lesson 33
Ninanunua ndizi moja na mayai sita.
I am buying one banana and six eggs.
Lesson 43

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