je m'appelle l'amour.

Still going!

6. The Swahili verb and present tense:
The Swahili verb consists of a subject prefix, a tense marker, and a verb stem. For example--

Ni-na-sema 'I say/ I am saying'
Ni- : First person singular subject marker, 'I'
-na- : Tense/ Aspect marker of present tense
-sema : Verb stem, 'say'

Subject prefixes:
ni- : 'I' --> mimi (comparable subject pronoun)
u- : 'you (sing.)' --> wewe
a- : 'she, he' --> yeye
tu- : 'we' --> sisi
m- : 'you (pl.)' --> ninyi
wa- : 'they' --> wao

Examples:
Mimi ninasema... 'I say...'
Wewe unasema... 'you say...'
Yeye anasema... 'he says...'
Sisi tunasema... 'we say...'
Ninyi mnasema... 'you all say...'
Wao wanasema... 'they say...'


7. Ni and Si
Swahili uses the verbs ni and si to express English 'is/are' and 'is not/are not,' respectively.

Examples:
Suzy ni mwalimu mkali; tete si kijana, ni mzee.
'Suzy is a strict teacher; she is not young, she is old.' (My teacher was kidding, apparently, when she gave this example...)

These verbs serve for ANY subject, both singular and plural:

Walimu ni wazuri.
'The teachers are good.'

8. Reciprocal verbs:
Swahili has ways of modifying the meanings of verbs by changing their endings. Reciprocal verb form entails performing an action that affects both speaker and hearer:

-ona 'see' --> -onana 'see each other'
-amkia 'greet' --> -amkianana 'greet each other'
-aga 'say goodbye --> -agana 'say goodbye to each other'

So you can say something like:
Agana! 'say goodbye to each other! (imp.)'
Wao wanaamkiana. 'they are greeting each other.'





I'd like to write an entry dedicated to noun classes and adjectives in the near future. I'm done for now.


Kwaherini!

Soksi ya siku... I think. Oh yeah, I have more socks.




Floral lace ballerina footies with back bow; hot pink. Made in Japan.

Continued.

2. Habari Greetings.
Habari literally means 'news,' thus habari gani means 'what sort of news?', i.e. 'how are things?'
This can be modified to ask more directly about different things, e.g. habari za asubuhi (lit. 'news of the morning'), thus 'how are things this morning?'

Habari gani? (How are things?)
Habari za asubuhi? (How are you this morning?)
Habari za mchana? (...this afternoon?)
Habari za jioni? (...this evening?)
Habari za usiku? (...tonight?)

I'm guessing za means "of/about," seeing that habari za can be used in headings like habari za sarufi, 'news of grammar'-- 'About Grammar."

The appropriate response to habari greetings would be:
Nzuri 'fine'
Mbaya 'bad'

Adding sana would make them 'very well' and 'very bad':
Nzuri sana 'very well'
Mbaya sana 'very bad'


3. There are NO definite or indefinite articles in Swahili. The meaning depends on context:
Mwalimu 'the teacher, a teacher, teacher'

4. An infinitive (also gerund) in Swahili is formed by prefixing ku- to a verb stem:
ku-fundisha 'to teach/teaching'
ku-soma 'to read/reading'
ku-itika 'to respond/responding'
ku-sema 'to say/saying'

*hyphens in there to show morpheme break-up. So for example, you would see kufundisha in actual Swahili writing.

In French, the infinitive also acts as the gerund as well.

J'aime parler. 'I like to speak.'
Parler est amusant. 'Speaking is fun.'

5. Simple imperatives (addressed to one person) are formed by using just the verb stem:

Juma, sema, sijambo! 'Juma, say, sijambo!'


Plural commands are formed by adding -ni to the verb stem.

Jibu (Answer)--> Jibuni! (Answer! to more than one person)

*When the verb stem ends in the vowel 'a,' you change it to an e:

Sema (Say) --> Sema-ni --> Seme-ni --> Semeni! (Say!)


Certain Swahili greetings follow this pattern:
Singular --> Plural
Karibu! --> Karibuni! (Welcome!)
Asante! --> Asanteni! (Thank you!)
Kwaheri! --> Kwaherini! (Goodbye!)


Socks of the day #2!




Cotton/Polyester open-toe halfsocks, beige/gold. There's a separate hole for the thumb. Yes, I can wear socks with flip-flops. Made in Japan.

Hamjambo! (Swahili, plural)

This entry is mainly for myself (aren't all of them?)...since my Swahili class/teacher is so disorganized...

I just kind of do my own thing in class. Morphological analysis and stuff. Swahili morphology is pretty cool.

1. Jambo greetings
Jambo! = Hello! (Opening greeting)

Jambo is a noun literally meaning 'affair, matter, thing, etc.'

The full form hujambo and its response sijambo are preferred by most native and standard speakers of Swahili.

Jambo forms depending on subject:
I= mimi --> Mimi sijambo!
You (sing.)= wewe --> Wewe hujambo!*
He/she= yeye --> Yeye hajambo!
We= sisi --> Sisi hatujambo!
You (pl.)= ninyi --> Ninyi hamjambo!*
They= wao --> Wao hamjambo!

So,
--Wewe hujambo? (Are you fine?) --Mimi sijambo. (I am fine.)
or
-- Hujambo. (Hello.) --Sijambo. (Hello.)

My teacher said that adding the subject is optional in all forms...?

Second person forms of jambo greetings (marked with *) are conventionalized greetings comparable to the English initial greeting 'hello.' Other forms which are listed with question marks, have question intonations because they are asking about someone's health or condition.

--Hujambo. --Sijambo. (Hello; Hello.)
--Hamjambo. --Hatujambo. (Hello (pl.); Hello.)
--Hajambo? --Hajambo. (Is he fine? He is fine.)
--Hawajambo? --Hawajambo. (Are they fine? They are fine.)
--Wewe hujambo? --Sijambo. (Are you fine? I'm fine.)
--Yeye hajambo? --Hajambo. (Is he fine? He is fine.)
--Wao hawajambo? --Hajambo. (Are they fine? They are fine.)


Kind of reminds me of "çava? çava." greetings in French, except more specific to the speaker and listener.


Now, the socks of the day.



My room sockz.

Cotton over-the-knee socks, pastel rainbow; Sock Dreams.

Hujambo. (Swahili)



So I've purchased my Swahili text book, and I must say, I'm pretty excited. It has entertained me for the last 2 hours.


From the introduction so far, I can tell that Swahili has some intense affixation. Grammatical functions are signaled on the verb, for example, by affixes. These affixes as indicators include subject, object, and relative pronouns. For example:

Hawa ni walimu wa-na-o-wa-fundisha wanafunzi.
(These are teachers they-TENSE-who-them-teach students.)
"These are the teachers who are teaching the students."


Neat.


As for phonetics, I think some of the pronunciation is similar to Japanese. The book does a decent job of throwing in IPA terms overall...minus when they explain the vowels. "...vowels in Swahili are 'short' and are not drawled, nor diphthongized, as are the comparable English ones. For instance, Swahili e is similar to the vowel in English say without the lengthening or gliding which characterizes English vowels..."

Erm. Ok?

I don't like it when second language books compare pronunciations to English like that. And the whole "short" and "long" descriptions. Kinda shady. How about "R.E. got oh!" for thank you in Japanese?

But I see what they're trying to characterize. The Swahili vowels are the relatively "pure" vowels, comparable to Spanish ones. Which would be similar to Japanese vowel values.

And consonants. Let's see, looks like aspiration is contrastive in Swahili. Aspiration is the little "puff" of air released after the articulation of voiceless stops (like p,t, or k). Aspiration is represented by the superscript h in IPA (I'll write it as ^h). And when I say contrastive, I mean:

p^haa 'gazelle'
(aspirated p)

compared to

paa 'roof'
(unaspirated p)

So just by aspirating, you can distinguish the word's meaning in Swahili.

In English, aspiration isn't contrastive. Say "pot." The p is aspirated. Now say "spot." Now the p isn't aspirated. Try saying "pot" without the puff of air; you might get something like an British-accented "pot." Say someone had a funky accent, and pronounced "pot" like that. Does it still mean 'a round container'? Of course. This shows that the aspiration isn't contrastive, but rather is in free variation.

But anyway, I don't think anyone pronounces "pot" awkwardly like that, so in general American English, aspirated consonants don't naturally occur in the same phonetic environment as unaspirated consonants. Meaning, the puff of air will never occur in "spot" (unless you force it). It can't. Linguists call a relationship like this of two or more sounds, "complementary distribution."




Ok back to Swahili consonants...

From what I can tell the r is tapped like in Japanese.

Both the voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives (th as in "though" and "through," respectively) exisit in Swahili. However, expressed differently in writing, which is unlike English.! th = unvoiced, dh = voiced.

Hmm, I also see voiced velar fricatives? Like "Bach," but voiced?


Some nasal news:
Velar nasals, "ng."
Palatalized nasal, "ny."
Nasal+labial glide, "mw"

It says that IN SOME CASES when nasals occur before other consonants, they are pronounced as full syllables, but without inserting a vowel sound either before or after the pronunciation of the them (the nasals). For example:

SYLLABIC NASALS (n and m)
mtu 'person
nta 'wax'
nchi 'country'

NON-SYLLABIC NASALS (n and m)
mboga 'vegetable'
ndege 'bird, airplane'
ngoma 'dance'

So far I can infer that this "some cases" they refer to is when the nasal precedes an unvoiced consonant? I guess I'll see. I smell something comparable to Japanese with these "syllabic nasals"....?



This became longer than I intended it to be, so I'll conclude here. I'm pretty excited about Swahili1010.



We must not forget socks of the day:




Thigh-high cotton, polyester, spandex socks with no-fall rubber lace grip at top. Black. Made in Japan.