Luganda, sometimes known as
Ganda, is a major language of
UgandaThe Republic of Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania...
, spoken by over ten million people mainly in Southern Uganda which includes the Ugandan
capitalCapital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....
KampalaKampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division...
. It belongs to the Bantu branch of the
Niger-CongoThe Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
language family.
TypologicallyLinguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity of the world's languages...
, it is an agglutinating language with subject-verb-object word order and
nominative-accusativeA nominative–accusative language, or simply an accusative language, is a language that marks the direct object of transitive verbs distinguishing them from the subject of both transitive and intransitive verbs....
morphosyntactic alignmentIn linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs...
.
With about six million first-language-speakers in the Buganda region and about four million others with a working knowledge, it is the most widely spoken Ugandan language, and as second language in Uganda is next to
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
. The language is used in some primary schools in Buganda as pupils begin to learn English, the
official languageAn official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
of Uganda. Until the 1960s, Luganda was also the official language of instruction in primary schools in Eastern Uganda.
Phonology
A notable feature of Luganda phonology is its geminate consonants and distinctions between long and short vowels. speakers generally consider consonantal gemination and vowel lengthening to be two manifestations of the same effect, which they call simply "doubling" or "stressing".
Luganda is also a tonal language; the change in the pitch of a syllable can change the meaning of a word. For example the word
kabaka means 'king' if all three syllables are given the same pitch. If the first syllable is high then the meaning changes to 'the little one catches' (third person singular present tense Class VI
ka- of
-baka 'to catch'). This feature makes Luganda a difficult language for speakers of non-tonal languages to learn, a non-native speaker has to learn the variations of pitch by prolonged listening.
Vowels
Luganda vowels
|
Front A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also called...
|
Back A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
|
| Close A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
|
i |
u |
| Close-mid A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...
|
e |
o |
| Open An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in nearly all spoken languages . The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
|
a |
All five vowels have two forms: long and short. The distinction is phonemic but can occur only in certain positions. After two consonants, the latter being a
semivowelSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
, and before two consonants, the former being a
nasalA nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
, all vowels are long. Before a geminate, all vowels are short. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.
Consonants
The table below gives the consonant set of Luganda, grouping voiceless and voiced consonants together in a cell where appropriate, in that order.
|
LabialIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
|
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
|
PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
|
VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
|
| Nasal A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
|
m |
n |
ɲ |
ŋ |
| Stop A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Plosives are oral stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. The term is also used to...
|
p b |
t d |
tʃ dʒ |
k ɡ |
| Fricative Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
|
| s z |
|
|
| Approximant Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence. Approximants are...
|
|
l~r |
j |
w |
| Trill In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....
|
|
|
|
- The liquids
Liquid consonants, or liquids, are trills, taps, or approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels .The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics...
and are actually allophoneIn phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word...
s of a single phonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
though the distinction is reflected in the orthography and is generally recognised by native speakers.
- The labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
fricativesFricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
and are slightly labialised and so could also be transcribed and respectively.
Apart from , all these consonants can be
geminatedIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, Classical Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, and Luganda....
, even at the start of a word:
bbiri ('two'),
kitto ('cold'). The affricates and are realised as and respectively when geminated:
kinakkinaye ('to hurry'),
jjajja ('grandfather'). The
approximantApproximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence. Approximants are...
s and are geminated as and :
eggwanga ('country');
jjenje ('cricket')—from the roots
wanga and
yenje respectively, with the singular noun prefix
e- that doubles the following consonant.
Apart from , and , all consonants can also be prenasalised—prefixed with a
nasal consonantA nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
. This consonant will be , , or according to the
place of articulationIn articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and a passive articulator...
, and belongs to the same syllable as the consonant it precedes.
The
liquidLiquid consonants, or liquids, are trills, taps, or approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels .The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics...
becomes when
geminatedIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, Classical Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, and Luganda....
or prenasalised. For example
ndaba 'I see' (from the root
-laba with the subject prefix
n-);
eddagala 'leaf' (from the root
-lagala with the singular noun prefix
e-, which doubles the following consonant.
A consonant can't be both geminated and prenasalised. When
morphologicalMorphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules...
processes require this, the gemination is dropped and the syllable is inserted, which can then be prenasalised. For example when the prefix
en- is aded to the adjective
-ddugavu 'black' the result is
enzirugavu .
The
nasalsA nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
, , and can be
syllabicSyllabic may refer to:*Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables*Abugida, writing system using symbols for consonant-vowel combinations *Syllable...
at the start of a word:
nkima (monkey),
mpa (I give),
nnyinyonnyola or (I explain). Note that this last example can be analysed in two ways, reflecting the fact that there's no distinction between prenasalisation and gemination when applied to nasal consonants.
Phonotactics
SyllableA syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s can take any of the following forms:
- V (only as the first syllable of a word)
- CV
- GV
- NCV
- CSV
- GSV
- NCSV
where V =
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
, C = single
consonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx...
(including nasals and semivowels but excluding geminates), G = geminate consonant, N =
nasal consonantA nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
, S =
semivowelSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
These forms are subject to certain
phonotacticPhonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints.Phonotactic constraints are language...
restrictions:
- Two vowels may not appear adjacent to one another. When morphological
Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules...
or grammaticalIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
rules cause two vowels to meet, the first vowel is elidedElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect....
or reduced to a semivowelSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
and the second is lengthened if possible.
- A vowel following a consonant–semivowel combination (except ) is always long. After a vowel can be either long or short.
- A vowel followed by a nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
–non-nasal consonant combination is always long.
- A vowel followed by a geminate is always short. This rule takes precedence over all the above rules.
- The velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
plosives and may not appear before the vowel or the semivowel . In this position they become the corresponding postalveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate .Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called...
affricatesAffricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
and respectively.
- The consonants , and / can't be geminated
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, Classical Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, and Luganda....
or prenasalised.
- A consonant can't be both geminated and prenasalised.
The net effect of this is that all Luganda words follow the general pattern of alternating
consonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s and
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, beginning with either but always ending in a vowel:
where V =
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
, X =
consonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
, (V) = optional vowel
This is reflected in the
syllabificationSyllabification is the separation of a word into syllables, whether spoken or written.The written separation is usually marked by a hyphen...
rule that words are always hyphenated after a vowel (when breaking a word over two lines). For example
Emmotoka yange ezze 'My car has arrived' would be split into syllables as
E‧mmo‧to‧ka ya‧nge e‧zze.
Variant pronunciations
In speech, word-final
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s are often
elidedElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect....
in these conditioning environments:
- Word-final can be silent after , , or
- Word-final can be silent after , , or
For example,
ekiddugavu 'black' may be pronounced or . Similarly
Naki (a girl's name) may be pronounced or .
Orthography
Luganda
spellingThe orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example for Kurdish, there can be more than one orthography. Orthography is derived from Greek ὀρθός orthós and γράφειν...
, which has been standardised since 1947, uses the Roman alphabet augmented with one new letter
ŋEng or engma is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a velar nasal in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet....
and a
digraphDigraph may refer to:* Digraph , a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
ny which is treated as a single letter. It has a very high sound-to-letter correspondence: one letter usually represents one sound and vice-versa.
The distinction between simple and geminate consonants is always represented explicitly: simple consonants are written single; geminates are written double. The distinction between
long and short vowelsIn linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English...
is always made clear from the spelling, but not always explicitly: short vowels are always written single; long vowels are only written double when their length cannot be inferred from the context.
StressIn linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense....
and
tonesTone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but...
are not represented in the spelling.
The following phonemes are always represented with the same letter or combination of letters:
- Short vowels (always spelt a, e, i, o, u)
- All consonants apart from , , and
- The postalveolar
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate .Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called...
affricatesAffricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
and , when followed by a short vowel (always spelt c, j), except when the short vowel is itself followed by a geminate consonant, or when the vowel is
The following phonemes can be represented with two letters or combinations of letters, with the alternation predictable from the context:
- Long vowels (spelt a, e, i, o, u where short vowels are impossible; aa, ee, ii, oo, uu elsewhere)
- The liquid
Liquid consonants, or liquids, are trills, taps, or approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels .The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics...
/ (spelt r after e or i; l elsewhere)
The following phonemes can be represented with two letters or combinations of letters, with unpredictable alternation between the two:
- The postalveolar
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate .Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called...
affricatesAffricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
and , when followed by a long vowel, by a short vowel and a geminate consonant, or by an i sound ( or ) (can be spelt either with c, j or with ky, gy)
It is therefore possible to predict the pronunciation of any word (with the exception of stress and tones) from the spelling. It's also usually possible to predict the spelling of a word from the pronunciation. The only words where this is not possible are those that include one of the affricate–vowel combinations discussed above.
Vowels
The five
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s in Luganda are spelt with the same letters as in many other languages (for example
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
):
As mentioned above, the distinction between long and short vowels is
phonemicIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
and is therefore represented in the orthography. Long vowels are written as double (when length cannot be inferred from the context) and short vowels are written single. For example:
- bana 'four (e.g. people)' vs baana 'children'
- sera 'dance' vs seera 'overcharge'
- sira 'mingle' vs siira 'walk slowly'
- kola 'do' vs koola '(to) weed'
- tuma 'send' vs tuuma '(to) name'
In certain contexts,
phonotacticPhonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints.Phonotactic constraints are language...
constraints mean that a vowel must be long, and in these cases it is not written double:
- A vowel followed by a nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
–non-nasal consonant combination
- A vowel that comes after a consonant–semivowel combination—apart from ggw which can be thought of as a geminated w, and ggy which can be thought of as a geminated y (although the latter is less common as this combination is more often spelt jj)
For example:
- ekyuma 'metal'
- ŋŋenda 'I go'
But
- eggwolezo 'court house'
- eggwoolezo 'customs office'
Vowels at the start or end of the word are not written double, even if they are long. The only exception to this (apart from all-vowel interjections such as
eee and
uu) is
yee 'yes'.
Consonants
With the exception of
ny , each
consonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx...
sound in Luganda corresponds to a single letter. The
ny combination is treated as a single letter and therefore doesn't have any effect on vowel length (see the previous subsection).
The following letters are pronounced as in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
:
- b
- d
- f
- j
- l
- m
- n
- p
- s
- t
- v
- w
- y
- z
A few letters have unusual values:
The letters
l and
r represent the same sound in Luganda——but the orthography requires
r after
e or
i, and
l elsewhere:
- alinda 'she's waiting'
- akirinda 'she's waiting for it'
There are also two letters whose pronunciation depends on the following letter:
- k is pronounced before i or y, elsewhere
- g is pronounced before i or y, elsewhere
Compare this to the pronunciation of
c and
g in many Romance languages. As in the Romance languages the 'softening letter' (in
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
i; in
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
e; in Luganda
y) is not itself pronounced, although in Luganda it does have the effect of lengthening the following vowel (see the previous subsection). Unlike the Romance languages, however, Luganda orthography has no way of forcing
k or
g to take on their 'hard' sounds, equivalent to the use of
h in Italian or the substitution of
qu and
gu for
c and
g in French. This is not needed because the sound combinations ,
etc. don't occur in Luganda. See also the previous section on phonotactics.
Finally the sounds and are spelt
n before another consonant with the same
place of articulationIn articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and a passive articulator...
(in other words, before other
palatalsPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
and
velarsVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
respectively) rather than
ny and
ŋ:
- The combinations and are spelt nny
- The combination is spelt nÿ (the diaeresis
In linguistics, diæresis, diaeresis, or dieresis, is the pronunciation of two adjacent vowels in two separate syllables rather than as a diphthong, and it is also the name of the diacritic mark used to prompt the reader to pronounce adjacent vowels in this manner.The word diæresis comes from the...
shows that the y is a separate letter rather than part of the ny digraph, and the is spelt n before y as in the above rule; in practice this combination is very rare) is spelt n before k or g (but not before another ŋ)
Alphabet
The standard Luganda alphabet is composed of twenty-four letters:
* 18 consonants:
b,
p,
v,
f,
m,
d,
t,
l,
r,
n,
z,
s,
j,
c,
g,
k,
ŋ,
ny
* 5 vowels:
a,
e,
i,
o,
u
* 2 semi-vowels:
w,
y
Since the last consonant
ŋ does not appear on standard typewriters or computer keyboards, it is often replaced by the combination
ng—including the apostrophe. In some non-standard authographies, the apostrophe is not used, which can lead to confusion with the letter combination ng
, which is different from ŋ
.
In addition, the letter combination ny
is treated as a unique consonant. When the letters n
and y
appear next to each other, they are written as nÿ
, with the diaeresisIn linguistics, diæresis, diaeresis, or dieresis, is the pronunciation of two adjacent vowels in two separate syllables rather than as a diphthong, and it is also the name of the diacritic mark used to prompt the reader to pronounce adjacent vowels in this manner.The word diæresis comes from the...
mark to distinguish this combination from ny
.
Other letters (h
, q
, x) are not used in the standard orthography, but are often used to write
loanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from one language and incorporated into another.-General:By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself.The word loanword is itself a calque of the German...
s from other languages. Most such loanwords have standardised spellings consistent with Luganda orthography (and therefore not using these letters), but these spelling are not often used, particularly for
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
words.
The full alphabet, including both standard Luganda letters and those used only for loanwords, is as follows:
- Aa, a
- Bb, bba
- Cc, cca
- Dd, dda
- Ee, e
- Ff, ffa
- Gg, gga
- (Hh, ha )
- Ii, yi
- Jj, jja
- Kk, kka
- Ll, la
- Mm, mma
- Nn, nna
- (NY Ny ny, nnya or nna-ya)
- Ŋŋ, ŋŋa
- Oo, o
- Pp, ppa
- (Qq )
- Rr, eri
- Ss, ssa
- Tt, tta
- Uu, wu
- Vv, vva
- Ww, wa
- (Xx )
- Yy, ya
- Zz, zza
- The letters h, q and x are included when reciting the alphabet and are usually given their English names (apart from ha).
- The digraph
Digraph may refer to:* Digraph , a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
ny, although considered a separate letter for orthographic purposes, is generally treated as a combination of n and y for other purposes. It's not included when reciting the alphabet.
Grammar
Like the grammars of most Bantu languages, Luganda's grammar can be said to be noun-centric in the sense that most words in a sentence agree with a noun. Agreement is by
genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
and
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, and is indicated with prefixes and infixes attached to the start of word stems.
The following parts of speech agree with nouns in class and number:
- adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
- verb
kalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
(for subject and object roles)
- pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English...
- possessive
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other....
Noun classes
NB: In the study of Bantu languages the term noun class is often used to refer to what is called
genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
in comparative linguistics and in the study of certain other languages. Hereafter, both terms may be used.
There is some disagreement as to how to count Luganda's
noun classIn linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es. Some authorities count
singularIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and
pluralPlural, commonly abbreviated pl., is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers.-English:...
forms as two separate classes while others treat the singular–plural distinction as being separate from class. By the former method there are 17 classes while by the latter there are 10, since there are two pairs of classes with identical plurals and one class with no singular–plural distinction.
The latter method is consistent with the study of non-Bantu languages: it is recognised, for example, that German has three genders—masculine, feminine and neuter—and two numbers—singular and plural. To ignore the
grammaticalIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
and
semanticSemantics is the study of meaning, usually in language. The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. This problem of...
relationship between 'masculine singular' and 'masculine plural' (for example Mann
'man' and Männer 'men') and to treat them as two genders out of a total of six would be artificial; so number is regarded as being distinct from gender, giving ten noun classes, nine of which have separate singular and plural forms. This is the usual way to discuss Luganda (but not when discussing Bantu languages generally).
As is the case with most languages, the distribution of nouns among the classes is essentially arbitrary, but there are some loose patterns:
- Class I contains mainly people, although some inanimate nouns can be found in this class: musajja 'man', kaawa 'coffee'
- Class II contains all sorts of nouns but most of the concrete nouns in Class II are long or cylindrical. Most trees fall into this class: muti 'tree'
- Class III also contains many different types of concepts but most animals fall into this class: mbwa 'dog'
- Class IV contains inanimate objects and is the class used for the impersonal 'it': ekitabo 'book'
- Class V contains mainly (but not exclusively) large things and liquids, and can also be used to create augmentative
An augmentative is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size, but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive....
s: ebbeere 'breast', lintu 'giant' (from muntu 'person')
- Class VI contains mainly small things and can be used to create diminutives, adjectival abstract nouns and (in the plural) negative
- Science and mathematics :* Negative and non-negative numbers* Negative mass* Negative energy * Electrical polarity* Negative lenses, uses to describe diverging optics...
verbal nounA verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb stem, sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to infinitives and supines ....
s and countries: kabwa 'puppy' (from mbwa 'dog'), kanafu 'laziness' (from munafu 'lazy'), bukola 'inaction, not to do' (from kukola 'to do, act'), Bungereza 'Britain, England' (from Mungereza 'British, English person')
- Class VII contains many different things including the names of most languages: Oluganda 'Luganda', Oluzungu 'English language' (from muzungu 'European, white person)
- Class VIII is rarely used but can be used to create pejorative
Pejoratives are terms which have a negative connotation. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense...
forms: gubwa 'mutt' (from mbwa 'dog')
- Class IX is mainly used for infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
s or affirmativeAffirmative can mean:*Pertaining to truth*Pertaining to an assertion*An answer that shows agreement or acceptance: see yes*Affirmative , the team which affirms the resolution*Affirmative action...
verbal nounA verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb stem, sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to infinitives and supines ....
s: kukola 'action, to do' (from the verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
kola 'do, act')
- Class X, which has no singular–plural distinction, is used for mass nouns, usually in the sense of 'a drop' or 'precious little': tuzzi 'drop of water' (from mazzi 'water'), tubaka 'sleep'
The class that a noun belongs to can usually be determined by its prefix:
- Class I: singular (o)mu-, plural (a)ba-
- Class II: singular (o)mu-, plural (e)mi-
- Class III: singular (e)n-, plural (e)n-
- Class IV: singular (e)ki-, plural (e)bi-
- Class V: singular li-, eri-, plural (a)ma-
- Class VI: singular (a)ka-, plural (o)bu-
- Class VII: singular (o)lu-, plural (e)n-
- Class VIII: singular (o)gu-, plural (a)ga-
- Class IX: singular (o)ku-, plural (a)ma-
- Class X: (o)tu-
There are a few only cases where prefixes overlap: the singulars of Classes I and II (both beginning with
mu-); the singular of Class III and plurals of Classes III and VII (all beginning with
n-); and the plurals of Classes V and IX (both
ma-). Genuine ambiguity, however, is rare, since even where the noun prefixes are the same, the other prefixes are often different. For example there can be no confusion between
omuntu (Class I) 'person' and
omuntu (Class II) 'seat' in the sentences
Omuntu ali wano 'The person is here' and
Omuntu guli wano 'The seat is here' because the verb prefixes
a- (Class I) and
gu- (Class II) are different, even if the noun prefixes are the same. The same is true with the singular and plural of Class III:
Embwa elya 'The dog is eating' vs
Embwa zilya 'The dogs are eating' (compare English
The sheep is eating vs
The sheep are eating where the noun is invariant but the verb distinguishes singular from plural).
In fact, the plurals of Classes III and VII, and those of Classes V and IX, are identical in all their prefixes (noun, verb, adjective
etc.).
Class V uses its noun prefixes a little differently from the other classes. The singular noun prefix,
eri-, is often reduced to
e- with an accompanying doubling of the stem's initial consonant. This happens when the stem begins with a single non-nasal consonant, or a single nasal consonant followed by a long vowel, a nasal consonant and then a non-nasal consonant (called a
nasalised stem). For example:
- eggi 'egg'; plural amagi (from stem gi)
- eggwanga 'country'; plural amawanga (from nasalised stem wanga—the w becomes ggw when doubled)
- ejjinja 'cricket'; plural amayinja (from nasalised stem yinja—the y becomes jj when doubled)
Other stems use the full prefix:
- erinnya 'name'; plural amannya (from stem nnya)
- eriiso 'eye'; plural amaaso (from stem yiso)
- eryanda 'battery'; plural amanda (from stem anda)
There are also some nouns that have no prefix. Their genders must simply be learnt by rote:
- Class I: ssebo 'gentleman, sir', nnyabo 'madam', Katonda 'God', kabaka 'king', kyayi 'tea', kaawa 'coffee'
- Class III: kkapa 'cat', gomesi 'gomesi (traditional East African women's formal dress)'
AdjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
s,
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
s, certain
adverbAn adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language, except for nouns: verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences and other adverbs. Modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives....
s, the possessive and a few special forms of
conjunctionConjunction can refer to:*Astronomical conjunction, an astronomical phenomenon*Astrological aspect, an aspect in horoscopic astrology*Grammatical conjunction, a part of speech*Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator...
s are inflected to agree with nouns in Luganda.
Adjectives
As in most Indo-European languages,
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
s must
agreeIn languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words it relates to....
in
genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
and
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
with the
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s they qualify. For example:
- omuwala omulungi 'beautiful girl' (Class I, singular
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
)
- abawala abalungi 'beautiful girls' (Class I, plural
Plural, commonly abbreviated pl., is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers.-English:...
)
- emmotoka ennungi 'beautiful/good car' (Class V, singular)
- amamotoka amalungi 'beautiful/good cars' (Class V, plural)
The adjective
-lungi changes its prefix according to the gender (Class I or II) and number (singular or plural) or the noun it's qualifying (compare
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
bella ragazza,
belle ragazze,
bel ragazzo,
bei ragazzi).
Verbs
As in other Bantu languages, every
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
must also
agreeIn languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words it relates to....
with its
subjectThe subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle. The other constituent is the predicate...
in gender and number (as opposed to number only as in Indo-European languages). For example:
- omusajja anywa 'the man is drinking' (Class I, singular)
- abasajja banywa 'the men are drinking' (Class I, plural)
- embuzi enywa 'the goat is drinking' (Class III, singular)
- embuzi zinywa 'the goats are drinking' (Class III, plural)
- akaana kanywa 'the baby/infant is drinking' (Class VI, singular)
- obwana bunywa 'the babies/infants are drinking' (Class VI, plural)
Here, the verb
nywa changes its prefix according to the gender and number of its subject (compare
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
number and gender agreement in a topicalized-subject construction:
ar-rajul yashrib 'the man drinks',
ar-rijaal yashribou 'the men drink',
al-mara'ah tashrib 'the woman drinks',
an-nisaa' yashribna 'the women drink').
Note, in the second and third examples, how the verb agrees with the
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
of the noun even when the noun doesn't explicitly reflect the number distinction.
When the verb governs one or more objects, there is an agreement between the object infixes and the gender and number of their
antecedentsIn grammar, an antecedent is generally the noun or noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. However, an antecedent can also be a clause, especially when the anaphor is a demonstrative...
:
- mmunywa 'I drink it (e.g. coffee)' (kaawa 'coffee', Class I singular)
- nganywa 'I drink it (e.g. water)' (amazzi 'water', Class IX plural)
See also the detailed section on verbs below.
Adverbs
True
adverbAn adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language, except for nouns: verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences and other adverbs. Modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives....
s in the
grammaticalIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
sense are far rarer in Luganda than in, say,
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
, being mostly translated by other parts of speech—for example
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
s or
particlesA particle, in grammar, is a function word that is not assignable to any of the traditional grammatical word classes . The term is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of elements and lacks a precise universal definition...
.
When the adverb is qualifying a
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
, it's usually translated by an adjective, which then agrees with the
subjectThe subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle. The other constituent is the predicate...
of the verb. For example:
- Ankonjera bubi 'She slanders me badly'
- Bankonjera bubi 'They slander me badly'
Here, 'badly' is translated with the adjective
-bi 'bad, ugly', which is
declinedIn linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as number , case , gender, and possession. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, but is much less...
to agree with the subject.
Other concepts can be translated by invariant
particlesA particle, in grammar, is a function word that is not assignable to any of the traditional grammatical word classes . The term is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of elements and lacks a precise universal definition...
. for example the intensifying
particleA particle, in grammar, is a function word that is not assignable to any of the traditional grammatical word classes . The term is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of elements and lacks a precise universal definition...
nnyo is attached to an adjective or verb to mean 'very', 'a lot'. For example:
Lukwago anywa nnyo 'Lukwago drinks a lot'.
There are also two groups of true adverb in Luganda, both of which agree with the verbal subject or qualified noun (not just in
genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
and
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
but also in
personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
), but which are inflected differently. The first group is
conjugatedIn linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
in the same way as
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
s and contains only a few words:
tya 'how',
ti 'like this',
tyo 'like that':
- Njogera bwe nti 'I speak like this'
- Abasiraamu basaba bwebati 'Muslims pray like this'
- Enkima erya bweti 'The monkey eats like this'
- Enkima zirya bweziti 'Monkeys eat like this'
The adverb
ti 'like this' (the last word in each of the above sentences) is conjugated as a verb to agree with the subject of the sentence in gender, number and person.
The second group takes a different set of prefixes, based on the pronouns. Adverbs in this group inclusde
-nna 'all' (or, with the singular, 'any'),
-kka 'only',
-mbi, -mbiriri 'both' and
-nsatule 'all three':
- Nkola nzekka 'I work alone'
- Nzekka nze nkola 'Only I work'
- Ggwe wekka ggwe okola 'Only you work'
- Nze nzekka nze ndigula emmotoka 'Only I will buy the car'
- Ndigula mmotoka yokka 'I will only buy the car'
Note how, in the last two examples, the adverb
-kka agrees with whichever
antecedentIn grammar, an antecedent is generally the noun or noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. However, an antecedent can also be a clause, especially when the anaphor is a demonstrative...
it's qualifying—either the implicit
nze 'I' or the explicit
emmotoka 'the car'.
Note also, in the first two examples, how the placement of
nzekka before or after the verb makes the difference between 'only' (when the adverb qualifies and agrees with the subject—the implicit
nze 'I') and 'alone' (when it qualifies the verb
nkola 'I work' but agrees with the subject).
Possessive
The possessive in Luganda is indicated with a different particle for each
singular and pluralIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
noun classIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
(according to the possessed noun). An alternative way of thinking about the Luganda possessive is as a single word whose initial
consonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
is altered to agree with the possessed noun in class and number.
Depending on the possessed noun, the possessive takes one of the following forms:
- Singular wa, plural ba (Class I)
- Singular gwa, plural gya (Class II)
- Singular ya, plural za (Class III)
- Singular kya, plural bya (Class IV)
- Singular lya, plural ga (Class V)
- Singular ka, plural bwa (Class VI)
- Singular lwa, plural za (Class VII)
- Singular gwa, plural ga (Class VIII)
- Singular kwa, plural ga (Class IX)
- Twa (Class X)
If the possessor is a
personal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known human languages have personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
, the separate possessive form is not used. Instead, the following
personal possessivesWhat are traditionally and popularly, if mistakenly, called possessive adjectives — in linguistic analyses possessive pronouns, possessive determiners or genitive pronouns — are a part of speech that prototypically modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...
are used:
- Wange 'my', wo 'your (singular possessor)', we 'his, her'; waffe 'our', wammwe 'your (plural possessor)', waabwe 'their' (Class I, singular possessed noun)
- Bange 'my', bo 'your (singular possessor)', be 'his, her'; baffe 'our', bammwe 'your (plural possessor)', baabwe 'their' (Class I, plural possessed noun)
- Gwange 'my', gwo 'your (singular possessor)', gwe 'his, her'; gwaffe 'our', gwammwe 'your (plural possessor)', gwabwe 'their' (Class II, singular possessed noun)
- Gyange 'my', gyo 'your (singular possessor)', gye 'his, her'; gyaffe 'our', gyammwe 'your (plural possessor)' gyabwe 'their' (Class II, plural possessed noun)
- Yange 'my', yo 'your', etc. (Class III, singular possessed noun)
- Etc.
Compare these to the
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
possessive adjectiveWhat are traditionally and popularly, if mistakenly, called possessive adjectives — in linguistic analyses possessive pronouns, possessive determiners or genitive pronouns — are a part of speech that prototypically modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...
s:
- Mon 'my', ton 'your (singular possessor)', son 'his, her, its'; notre 'our', votre 'your (plural possessor)', leur 'their'—Masculine singular possessed noun
- Ma 'my', ta 'your (singular possessor)', sa 'his, her, its'; notre 'our', votre 'your (plural possessor)', leur 'their'—Masculine singular possessed noun
- Mes 'my', tes 'your (singular possessor)', ses 'his, her, its'; nos 'our', vos 'your (plural possessor)', leurs 'their'—Plural possessed noun
There are also a few
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s that take special forms when used with a possessive:
- Kitange 'my father', kitaawo 'your (singular) father', kitaawe 'his/her father'
Verbs
Luganda verbs are inflected for
personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
,
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
,
tenseGrammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with mood, voice, aspect, and person, which verb forms may express....
,
moodGrammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar...
and the
genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
of the
subjectThe subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle. The other constituent is the predicate...
and, if present,
objectsAn object in grammar is a sentence element and is often part of the sentence predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb...
.
Subject and objects
The
subjectThe subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle. The other constituent is the predicate...
of a verb is indicated with a prefix that agrees with the
antecedentIn grammar, an antecedent is generally the noun or noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. However, an antecedent can also be a clause, especially when the anaphor is a demonstrative...
in
personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
and
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. In the third person the prefix also agrees in
noun classIn linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
with its antecedent.
The subject prefixes for the
personal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known human languages have personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s are:
- First person: singular n- 'I', plural tu- 'we'
- Second person: singular o- 'you (singular)', mu- 'you (plural)'
- Third person: singular a- 'he, she', ba- 'they (Class I)'
For impersonal pronouns the subject prefixes are:
- Class I: singular a-, plural ba- (i.e. the third person prefixes shown directly above)
- Class II: singular gu-, plural gi-
- Class III: singular e-, plural zi-
- Class IV: singular ki-, plural bi-
- Class V: singular li-, plural ga-
- Class VI: singular ka-, plural bu-
- Class VII: singular lu-, plural zi-
- Class VIII: singular gu-, plural ga-
- Class IX: singular ku-, plural ga-
- Class X: tu-
When a verb governs one or more
objectsAn object in grammar is a sentence element and is often part of the sentence predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb...
, they are shown with
infixAn infix is an affix inserted inside a stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Infixes in English:...
es that agree with the
antecedentAn antecedent is a preceding event, condition, cause, phrase, or word. It may refer to:* Antecedent moisture, a hydrologic term describing the relative wetness condition of a sewershed* Antecedent , the first half of a hypothetical proposition...
in
personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
and
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. As with the subject prefix, the
third personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
infixes also agree with their antecedents in
noun classIn linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
. The personal object infixes are:
- First person: singular -n- 'me', plural -tu- 'us'
- Second person: singular -ku- 'you (singular)', -ba- 'you (plural)'
- Third person: singular -mu- 'him, her', -ba- 'them (Class I)'
For the third person the object prefixes are:
- Class I: singular -mu-, plural -ba- (i.e. the third person prefixes shown directly above)
- Class II: singular -gu-, plural -gi-
- Class III: singular -ta-, plural -zi-
- Class IV: singular -ki-, plural -bi-
- Class V: singular -li-, plural -ga-
- Class VI: singular -ka-, plural -bu-
- Class VII: singular -lu-, plural -zi-
- Class VIII: singular -gu-, plural -ga-
- Class IX: singular -ku-, plural -ga-
- Class X: -tu-
Note the similarity between each subject prefix and the corresponding object infix: they are the same in all cases except Class I and the singular of Class III. Note also the correspondence between the object infixes and the noun prefixes (see Nouns above): when every
m- in the noun prefix is replaced by a
g- in the object infix, the only differences are in Classes I and III.
The direct object infix is usually inserted directly after the subject prefix:
- nkiridde 'I have eaten it' (n- subject 'I' + -ki- object 'it' + -ridde verb 'ate')
The indirect object infix comes after the direct object:
- nkimuwadde 'I have given it to him' (n- subject 'I' + -ki- object 'it' + -mu- object '(to) him' + -wadde verb 'gave')
Negative
The negative is usually formed by prefixing
te- or
t- to the subject prefix, or, in the case of the first person singular, replacing the prefix with
si-. This results in the following set of personal subject prefixes:
- First person: singular si- 'I', plural tetu- 'we'
- Second person: singular to- 'you (singular)', temu- 'you (plural)'
- Third person: singular ta- 'he, she', teba- 'they (Class I)'
The negative impersonal subject prefixes are:
- Class I: singular ta-, plural teba- (i.e. the third person prefixes shown directly above)
- Class II: singular tegu-, plural tegi-
- Class III: singular te-, plural tezi-
- Class IV: singular teki-, plural tebi-
- Class V: singular teri-, plural tega-
- Class VI: singular teka-, plural tebu-
- Class VII: singular telu-, plural tezi-
- Class VIII: singular tegu-, plural tega-
- Class IX: singular teku-, plural tega-
- Class X: tetu-
When used with object relatives or the narrative tense (see below), the negative is formed with the infix
-ta-, which is inserted after the subject and object affixes:
- Omuntu gwe nnalabye 'The person whom I saw'
- Omuntu gwe ssalabye 'The person whom I didn't see'
Tense
TenseGrammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with mood, voice, aspect, and person, which verb forms may express....
in Luganda is explicitly marked on the verb, as it is in most other Bantu languages.
Present tense
The
present tenseThe present tense is the tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* an occurrence in the near future; or* an action that occurred in the past and continues up to the present....
is formed by simply adding the subject prefixes to the stem. The negative is formed in the same way but with the negative subject prefixes (this is the usual way of forming the negative in Luganda).
Examples of present tense inflection
| Inflection |
Gloss |
Negative |
Gloss |
| nkola |
'I do' |
sikola |
'I don't do' |
| okola |
'you do' |
tokola |
'you don't do' |
| akola |
'he, she does' |
takola |
'he, she doesn't do' |
| tukola |
'we do' |
tetukola |
'we don't do' |
| mukola |
'you (plural) do' |
temukola |
'you (plural) don't do' |
| bakola |
'they (class I) do' |
tebakola |
'they (class I) don't do' |
| gukola |
'it (class II) does' |
tegukola |
'it (class II) doesn't do' |
| bikola |
'they (class IV) do' |
tebikola |
'they (class IV) don't do' |
| zikola |
'they (class VII) do' |
tezikola |
'they (class VII) don't do' |
The
present perfect tenseThe present perfect tense is a perfect tense used to express action that has been completed with respect to the present. "I have finished" is an example of the present perfect...
makes use of a special form of the verb stem, called the 'modified form'. This is formed by making various changes to the final syllable of the stem, usually involving either changing the final syllable to one of the following
suffixIn grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es, or adding a suffix:
- -se
- -sse
- -ze
- -zze
- -izze
- -ezze
- -nye
- -nyi
- -ye
- -de
- -dde
The present perfect is just the subject prefixes plus the modified stem:
- nkoze 'I have done'
- okoze 'you have done'
- akoze 'he, she has done'
- tukoze 'we have done'
- mukoze 'you (plural) have done'
- bakoze 'they (class I) have done'
The present perfect tense in Luganda is sometimes slightly weaker in its past meaning than in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
. It's often used with
intransitive verb----In grammar, an intransitive verb does not take an object. In more technical terms, an intransitive verb has only one argument , and hence has a valency of one. For example, in English, the verbs sleep and die, are intransitive...
s with the sense of being in the state of having done something. For example
baze azze means 'my husband has arrived' (using the present perfect form
-zze of the verb
jja 'to come';
ŋŋenze usually means 'I'm off' rather than 'I have gone'. But to say
I have done in Muganda would usually use one of the past tenses
nnakoze or
nnakola 'I did' because
kola is a transitive verb.
The present perfect is also used to show physical attitude. For example, using the verb
okutuula 'to sit down':
ntuula (present tense) means 'I am in the process of sitting myself down'; to say 'I'm sitting down' in the usual English sense of 'I'm seated', a Muganda would use the present perfect:
ntudde.
Past tense
The near past is formed by inserting the infix
-a- before the modified form of the stem. This infix, being a vowel, has the effect of changing the form of the subject prefixes:
- nnakoze 'I did'
- wakoze 'you did'
- yakoze 'he, she did'
- twakoze 'we did'
- mwakoze 'you (plural) did'
- baakoze 'they (class I) did'
- ...
The near past tense is used for events that have happened in the past 18 hours. The negative is formed in the usual way.
The far past is formed with the same infix
-a- as the near past, but using the simple form of the stem:
- nnakola 'I did'
- wakola 'you did'
- yakola 'he, she did'
- twakola 'we did'
- mwakola 'you (plural) did'
- baakola 'they (class I) did'
- ...
The far past tense is used for events that happened more than 18 hours ago, and can also be used as a weak
pluperfect tenseThe pluperfect tense , also called past perfect in English, is a perfect tense that exists in most Indo-European languages, used to refer to an event that has been completed before another past action.In the sentence "The blind man, who knew that he had risen, motioned him to sit down again" The...
. This is the tense that's used in
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s and
storytellingStorytelling is the conveying of events in words, images, and sounds often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture and in every land as a means of entertainment, education, preservation of culture and in order to instill moral values...
.
Future tense
The near future is used when describing things that are going to happen within the next 18 hours. It's formed with the infix
-naa- on the simple form of the stem:
- nnaakola 'I shall do'
- onookola 'you will do'
- anaakola 'he, she will do'
- tunaakola 'we shall do'
- munaakola 'you (plural) will do'
- banaakola 'they (class I) will do'
- eneekola 'they (class III) will do'
- zinaakola 'they (class III) will do'
- ...
In the
second personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
singular and the singular of Class III, the infix becomes
-noo- and
-nee- in harmony with the subject prefix.
The negative form of this tense is formed by changing the final
-a of the stem to an
-e and using vowel-lengthened negative subject prefixes; no tense infix is used:
- siikole 'I shan't do'
- tookole 'you won't do'
- taakole 'he, she won't do'
- tetuukole 'we shan't do'
- temuukole 'you (plural) won't do'
- tebaakole 'they (class I) won't do'
- teguukole 'it (class II) won't do'
- tegiikole 'they (class II) won't do'
- teekole 'he, she, it (class III) won't do'
- teziikole 'they (class III) won't do'
- ...
The far future is used for events that will take place more than 18 hours in the future. It's formed with the infix
-li- on the simple form of the stem:
- ndikola 'I shall do'
- olikola 'you will do'
- alikola 'he, she will do'
- tulikola 'we shall do'
- mulikola 'you (plural) will do'
- balikola 'they (class I) will do'
- ...
Note how the
l of the tense infix becomes a
d after the
n- of the
first personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
singular subject prefix.
Other aspects
The
conditional moodThe conditional mood is the form of the verb used in conditional sentences to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set of circumstances...
is formed with the infix
-andi- and the modified form of the stem:
- nnandikoze 'I would do'
- wandikoze 'you would do'
- yandikoze 'he, she would do'
- twandikoze 'we would do'
- mwandikoze 'you (plural) would do'
- bandikoze 'they (class I) would do'
The subjunctive is a tense in Luganda, rather than a
moodGrammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar...
as in some languages. It's formed by changing the final
-a of the stem to an
-e:
- nkole 'I may do'
- okole 'you may do'
- akole 'he, she may do'
- tukole 'we may do'
- mukole 'you may do'
- bakole 'they may do'
The negative is formed either with the
auxiliary verbIn linguistics, an auxiliary is a verb functioning to give further semantic or syntactic information about the main or full verb following it...
lema ('to fail') plus the
infinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
:
- nneme kukola 'I may not do'
- oleme kukola 'you may not do'
- aleme kukola 'he, she may not do'
- tuleme kukola 'we may not do'
- muleme kukola 'you may not do'
- baleme kukola 'they may not do'
or using the same forms as the negative of the near future:
- siikole 'I may not do'
- tookole 'you may not do'
- taakole 'he, she may not do'
- tetuukole 'we may not do'
- temuukole 'you may not do'
- tebaakole 'they may not do'
Luganda has some special tenses not found in many other languages. The 'still' tense is used to say that something is still happening. It's formed with the infix
-kya-:
- nkyakola 'I'm still doing'
- okyakola 'you're still doing'
- akyakola 'he, she is still doing'
- tukyakola 'we're still doing'
- mukyakola 'you're still doing'
- bakyakola 'they're still doing'
In the negative it means 'no longer':
- sikyakola 'I'm no longer doing'
- tokyakola 'you're no longer doing'
- takyakola 'he, she is no longer doing'
- tetukyakola 'we're no longer doing'
- temukyakola 'you're no longer doing'
- tebakyakola 'they're no longer doing'
With
intransitive verb----In grammar, an intransitive verb does not take an object. In more technical terms, an intransitive verb has only one argument , and hence has a valency of one. For example, in English, the verbs sleep and die, are intransitive...
s, especially verbs of physical attitude (see Present Perfect Tense above), the
-kya- infix can also be used with the modified verb stem to give a sense of 'still being in a state'. For example
nkyatudde means 'I'm still seated'.
The 'so far' tense is used when talking about what has happened so far, with the implication that more is to come. It's formed with the infix
-aaka-:
- nnaakakola 'I have so far done'
- waakakola 'you have so far done'
- yaakakola 'he, she has so far done'
- twaakakola 'we have so far done'
- mwaakakola 'you have so far done'
- baakakola 'they have so far done'
This tense is found only in the
affirmativeAffirmative can mean:*Pertaining to truth*Pertaining to an assertion*An answer that shows agreement or acceptance: see yes*Affirmative , the team which affirms the resolution*Affirmative action...
. The 'not yet' tense, on the other hand, is found only in the negative. It's used to talk about things that haven't happened yet (but which may well happen in the future), and is formed with the infix
-nna-:
- sinnakola 'I haven't yet done'
- tonnakola 'you haven't yet done'
- tannakola 'he, she hasn't yet done'
- tetunnakola 'we haven't yet done'
- temunnakola 'you haven't yet done'
- bannakola 'they haven't yet done'
When describing a series of events that happen (or will or did happen) sequentially, the narrative form is used for all but the first verb in the sentence. It’s formed by the particle
ne (or
n’ before a
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
) followed by the present tense:
- Nnagenda ne nkuba essimu 'I went and made a phone call'
- Ndigenda ne nkuba essimu 'I’ll go and make a phone call'
The narrative can be used with any tense, as long as the events it describes are in immediate sequence. The negative is formed with the infix
-si- placed immediately after the object infixes (or after the subject prefix if no object infixes are used):
- Saagenda era ssaakuba ssimu 'I didn't go and did not make a phone call'
- Sirigenda era ssirikuba ssimu 'I won't go and will not make a phone call'
- Ssigenze era ssikubye 'I haven't gone to make it yet'
Compare this with the negative construction used with the object relatives.
Auxiliary verbs
Other tenses can be formed
periphrasticallyIn linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...
, with the use of
auxiliary verbIn linguistics, an auxiliary is a verb functioning to give further semantic or syntactic information about the main or full verb following it...
s. Some of Luganda's auxiliary verbs can also be used as main verbs; some are always auxiliaries:
- okuba 'to be': used with an optional nga with another finite verb
A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand by their own as complete sentences....
to form compound tenses
- okujja 'to come': forms a future tense when used with the infinitive of the main verb
- okulyoka or okulyokka (only used as an auxiliary): appears with another finite verb, usually translated 'and then' or (in the subjunctive) 'so that'
- okumala 'to finish': used with the infinitive to denote completed action, or with the stem of the main verb prefixed with ga- to mean 'whether one wants to or not'
- okutera (only used as an auxiliary): used with the infinitive of the main verb to mean (in the present tense) 'to tend to' or (in the near future) 'about to'
- okuva 'to come from': followed by the main verb in the infinitive, means 'just been'
- okulema 'to fail': used with the inifinitive to form negatives
Derivational affixes
The meaning of a verb can be altered in an almost unlimited number of ways by means of modifications to the verb stem. There are only a handful of core derivational modifications, but these can be added to the verb stem in virtually any combination, resulting in hundreds of possible compound modifications.
The passive is produced by replacing the final
-a with
-wa or
-ibwa/
-ebwa:
- okulaba 'to see' → okulabwa 'to be seen'
The
reflexiveIn grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
is created by adding the prefix
e- to the verb stem (equivalent to replacing the
oku- prefix of the
infinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
with
okwe-):
- okutta 'to kill' → okwetta 'to kill oneself'
Many verbs are used only in their reflexive form:
- okwebaka 'to sleep' (simple form *okubaka is not used)
- okwetaga 'to need' (simple form *okutaga is not used)
Reduplication is formed by doubling the stem, and generally adds the sense of repetition or intensity:
- okukuba 'to strike' → okukubaakuba 'to batter'
The
appliedThe applicative voice is a grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the patient argument, and indicates the oblique role within the meaning of the verb. When the applicative voice is applied to a verb, its valency may be increased by one, and intransitive verbs may be...
, or prepositional, modification, allows the verb to take an extra
objectAn object in grammar is a sentence element and is often part of the sentence predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb...
and gives it the meaning 'to do for or with (someone or something)
. It's formed with the infix -ir-
inserted before the final -a
of the stem:
okukola
'to work' → okukolera
'to work for (an employer)'
okwebaka
'to sleep' → okwebakira
'to sleep on (e.g.
a piece of furniture)'
Adding the applied infix twice gives the 'augmentative applied' modification, which has an alternative applied sense, usually further removed from the original sense than the simple applied modification:
okukola
'to work' → okukozesa
'to utilise, employ'
The causativeA causative form, in linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action or to be in a certain condition--salient cause, is an expression of a patient involves in a non-volitional event that registers the changes of its state--salient effect, is an...
is formed with various changes applied to the end of the verb, usually involving the final -a
changing to -ya
, -sa
or -za
. It gives a verb the sense of 'to cause to do', and can also make an intransitive verb----In grammar, an intransitive verb does not take an object. In more technical terms, an intransitive verb has only one argument , and hence has a valency of one. For example, in English, the verbs sleep and die, are intransitive...
transitiveIn syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:*Harry sees Adam....
:
okulaba
'to see' → okulabya
'to show' (more commonly "okulaga", a different verb, is used).
okufuuka
'to become' → okufuusa
'to turn (something or someone) into (something else)'
Appling two causative modifications results in the 'second causative':
okulaba
'to see' → okulabya
'to show' → okulabisa
'to cause to show'
The neuter modification, also known as the stativeA stative verb is one which asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; they have no duration and no distinguished endpoint...
, is similar to the '-able' suffix in EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
, except that the result is a verb meaning 'to be x
-able' rather than an adjective meaning x-able'. It's formed by inserting the infix
-ik/
-ek before the stem's final
-a:
- okukola 'to do' → okukoleka 'to be possible'
- okulya 'to eat' → okuliika 'to be edible'
The intransitive conversive modification reverses the meaning of an
intransitive verb----In grammar, an intransitive verb does not take an object. In more technical terms, an intransitive verb has only one argument , and hence has a valency of one. For example, in English, the verbs sleep and die, are intransitive...
and leaves it intransitive, or reverses the meaning of a
transitive verbIn syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:*Harry sees Adam....
and makes it intransitive, similar to
English'sEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
'un-' prefix. It's formed with the infix
-uk- inserted before the stem's final
-a:
- okukyala 'to pay a visit' → okukyaluka 'to end one's visit, to depart'
The transitive conversive is similar to the intransitive conversive except that it results in a transitive verb. In other words it reverses the meaning of an
intransitive verb----In grammar, an intransitive verb does not take an object. In more technical terms, an intransitive verb has only one argument , and hence has a valency of one. For example, in English, the verbs sleep and die, are intransitive...
and makes it
transitiveIn syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:*Harry sees Adam....
, or reverses the meaning of a transitive verb and leaves it transitive. It's formed with the infix
-ul-:
- okukola 'to do' → okukolula 'to undo'
- okusimba 'to plant' → okusimbula 'to uproot'
- okukyala 'to pay a visit' → okukyalula 'to send off'
Two conversive infixes create the augmentative conversive modification:
- okulimba 'to deceive' → okulimbulula 'to disabuse, set straight'
The reciprocal modification is formed with the suffix
-na or
-gana (or less commonly
-ŋŋa):
- okulaba 'to see' → okulabagana 'to see one another'
- okutta 'to kill' → okuttaŋŋana 'to kill each other'
The
progressiveIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow in the described event or state...
is formed with the suffix
-nga. It's used with
finite verbA finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand by their own as complete sentences....
s to give the sense of continuousness:
- ndimukuuma 'I'll look after him' → ndimukuumanga 'I'll always look after him'
- tosinda 'don't whinge' → tosindanga 'never whinge'
- "tobba" don't steal...."tobbanga" thou shat not steal.
This is not really a modification but a
cliticIn morphology, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent morpheme. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
, so it's always applied 'after' any grammatical inflexions.
Combinations of modifications
More than one modification can be made to a single stem:
- okukolulika 'to be undo-able (i.e. reversible)'—conversive neuter: kola → kolula → kolulika
- okusimbuliza 'to transplant'—conversive applied causative: simba -> simbula → simbulira → simbuliza
- okulabaalabana 'to look around oneself, be distracted'—reduplicative reciprocal: laba → labaalaba → labaalabana
- okulabaalabanya 'to distract'—reduplicative reciprocal causative: laba → labaalaba → labaalabana → labaalabanya
- okwebakiriza 'to pretend to sleep'—reflexive augmentative applied causative baka → ebaka → ebakira (applied) → ebakirira (augmentative applied) → ebakiriza
There are some restrictions that apply to the combinations in which these modifications can be made. For example the 'applied' modification can't be made to a causative stem; any causative modifications must first be removed, the applied modification made and the causative modifications then reapplied. And since the reflexive is formed with a prefix rather than a suffix, it's impossible to distinguish between, for example, reflexive causative and causative reflexive.
Numbers
The Luganda system of
cardinal numberIn mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number – the number of elements in the set. The transfinite cardinal numbers describe the sizes of infinite...
s is quite complicated. The numbers 'one' to 'five' are specialised numerical
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
s that
agreeIn languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words it relates to....
with the
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
they
qualifyIn grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the construction. Modifiers can be a word, a phrase or an entire clause...
. The words for 'six' to 'ten' are numerical nouns that don't agree with the qualified noun.
'Twenty' to 'fifty' are expressed as multiples of ten using the cardinal numbers for 'two' to 'five' with the plural of 'ten'. 'Sixty' to 'one hundred' are numerical nouns in their own right, derived from the same roots as the nouns for 'six' to 'ten' but with different class prefixes.
In a similar pattern, 'two hundred' to 'five hundred' are expressed as multiples of a hundred using the cardinal numbers with the plural of 'one hundred'. Then 'six hundred' to 'one thousand' are nouns, again derived from the same roots as 'six' to 'ten'. The pattern repeats up to 'ten thousand', then standard nouns are used for 'ten thousand', 'one hundred thousand' and 'one million'.
The words used for this system are:
Numerical adjectives (declined to agree with the qualified noun):
- emu (mumu, limu, kamu, kimu, ...) 'one'
- bbiri (babiri, abiri, ...) 'two'
- ssatu (basatu, asatu, ...) 'three'
- nnya (bana, ana, ...) 'four'
- ttaano (bataano, ataano, ...) 'five'
Numerical nouns:
- 'Six' to 'ten' (Class II)
- mukaaga 'six'
- musanvu 'seven'
- munaana 'eight'
- mwenda 'nine'
- kkumi 'ten'; plural amakumi
- 'Sixty' to 'one hundred' (Classes III and IV)
- nkaaga 'sixty' (Class III)
- nsanvu 'seventy'
- kinaana 'eighty' (Class IV)
- kyenda 'ninety'
- kikumi 'one hundred'; plural bikumi
- 'Six hundred' to 'one thousand' (Class VII)
- lukaaga 'six hundred'
- lusanvu 'seven hundred'
- lunaana 'eight hundred'
- lwenda 'nine hundred'
- lukumi 'one thousand'; plural nkumi
- 'Six thousand' to 'ten thousand' (Class VI)
- kakaaga 'six thousand'
- kasanvu 'seven thousand'
- kanaana 'eight thousand'
- kenda 'nine thousand'
- (archaic) kakumi 'ten thousand'; plural bukumi
Standard nouns:
- omutwalo 'ten thousand'; plural emitwalo (Class II)
- akasiriivu 'one hundred thousand'; plural obusiriivu (Class VI)
- akakadde 'one million'; plural obukadde (Class VI)
- akawumbi 'one trillion' (1,000,000,000,000); plural obuwumbi (Class VI)
- akafukunya 'one quintillion' (1,000,000,000,000,000,000); plural obufukunya (Class VI)
- akasedde 'one septillion' (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000); plural obusedde (Class VI)
Digits are specified from left to right, combined with
na (following
kkumi) and
mu (following any other word). For example:
- 12 kkumi na bbiri (10 + 2)
- 22 amakumi abiri mu bbiri (10 × 2 + 2)
- 65 nkaaga mu ttaano (60 + 5)
- 122 kikumi mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri (100 + 10 × 2 + 2)
- 222 bikumi bibiri mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri (100 × 2 + 10 × 2 + 2)
- 1,222 lukumi mu bikumi bibiri mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri (1,000 + 100 × 2 + 10 × 2 + 2)
- 1,024 lukumi mu amakumi abiri mu nnya (1,000 + 10 × 2 + 4)
- 2,222 nkumi bbiri mu bikumi bibiri mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri (1,000 × 2 + 100 × 2 + 10 × 2 + 2)
- 2,500 nkumi bbiri mu bikumi bitaano (1,000 × 2 + 100 × 5)
- 7,500 kasanvu mu bikumi bitaano (7,000 + 100 × 5)
- 7,600 kasanvu mu lukaaga (7,000 + 600)
- 9,999 kenda mu lwenda mu kyenda mu mwenda (9,000 + 900 + 90 + 9)
- 999,000 obusiriivu mwenda mu omutwalo mwenda mu kenda
- 1,000,000 akakadde (1,000,000)
- 3,000,000 obukadde gibiri (1,000,000 × 3)
- 10,000,000 obukadde kkumi (1,000,000 × 10)
- 122,000,122 obukadde kikumi mu amakumi abiri mu bubiri mu kikumi mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri (1,000,000 * (100 + 10 × 2 + 2) + 100 + 10 × 2 + 2)
The numerical adjectives agree with the qualified noun:
- emmotoka emu 'one car'
- omukazi omu 'one woman'
- amamotoka ataano 'five cars'
- abakazi bataano 'five women'
but
- amamotoka kikumi 'a hundred cars'
- abakazi kikumi 'a hundred women'
and
- abasajja kkumi n'omu 'eleven men'
- ente kkumi n'emu 'eleven cattle'
The forms
emu,
bbiri,
ssatu,
nnya and
ttaano are used when counting (as well as when qualifying nouns of classes III and VII).
However, a complication arises from the agreement of numerical adjectives with the powers of ten. Since the words for 'ten', 'hundred', 'thousand' and so on belong to different classes, each power of ten can be inferred from the form of the adjective qualifying it, so the plural forms of the powers of ten (
amakumi 'tens',
bikumi 'hundreds',
nkumi 'thousands',
bukumi 'tens of thousands') are usually omitted, as long as this doesn't result in ambiguity.
For example:
- 40 amakumi ana → ana
- 22 amakumi abiri mu bbiri → abiri mu bbiri
- 222 bikumi bibiri mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri → bibiri mu abiri mu bbiri
- 1,024 lukumi mu amakumi abiri mu nnya → lukumi mu abiri mu nnya
- 2,222 nkumi bbiri mu bikumi bibiri mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri → nkumi bbiri mu bibiri mu abiri mu bbiri
- 2,500 nkumi bbiri mu bikumi bitaano → nkumi bbiri mu bitaano
- 7,500 kasanvu mu bikumi bitaano → kasanvu mu bitaano
- 122,000,122 obukadde kikumi mu amakumi abiri mu bubiri mu kikumi mu amakumi abiri mu bbiri → obukadde kikumi mu abiri mu bubiri mu kikumi mu amakumi mu bbiri
Note that
amanda amakumi ana '40 batteries' cannot be shortened to
amanda ana because this means "four batteries", and
embwa amakumi ana '40 dogs' cannot be shortened to
embwa ana because
ana is the form of
nnya used with
embwa, so this actually means 'four dogs'!
Nkumi 'thousands' is also not usually omitted because the form the numerical adjectives take when qualifying it is the same as the counting form, so 3,000 will always be rendered
nkumi ssatu.
External links
- Ethnologue report for Ganda/Luganda
- Luganda Basic Course, developed by the USA Foreign Service Institute (1968)
- The Word in Luganda, by Larry M. Hyman & Francis X. Katamba
- An excellent online summary of the Luganda language can be found at http://www.buganda.com/luganda.htm.
- Free online Luganda Dictionary on the Ganda Ancestry website http://www.gandaancestry.com/dictionary/dictionary.php
- Free online talking Luganda Dictionary and Crossword Puzzle on the Ganda portal http://www.GandaSpace.com
- Luganda - English Dictionary
- The website of a team developing Luganda language capability for computers is at http://www.kizito.uklinux.net
- PanAfrican L10n page on Ganda
- Omuganda Agamba is a website that publishes one Luganda proverb everyday, with an English
translation
Frank Kigozi Picareader text to speech language software.