Contents Foreword v Acknowledgments and Dedication vii 1. About the Swahili Language 1 2. The Alphabet, Pronunciation, and Common Mistakes 7 3. Personal Subject Prefixes, Personal Pronouns and Their Negations 15 4. Swahili Greetings 23 5. Present and Future Tenses and Their Negations 37 6. Simple Past and Past Perfect Tenses and Their Negations 47 7. The Swahili Noun Class System: M-/WA- and M-/MI- 57 8. Swahili Noun Classes: JI-/MA- Class and KI-/VI- Class 69 9. Swahili Noun Classes: N- and U- 81 10. Swahili Noun Classes: PA- and KU- and Noun Class Agreement 91 11. Object Infixes 101 12. Possessives 111 13. Adjectives 125 14. Demonstratives 139 15. Comparatives and Superlatives 151 16. Question Words, Phrases and Statements 161 17. The Verbs ‘To Be,’ ‘To Have’ and ‘To Be in a Place’ 173 18. Numbers 183 19. More About Swahili Numbers 193 20. Telling the Time in Swahili 207 21. Days, Months, and Dates in Swahili 219 Copyright © 2014. UPA. All rights reserved. © 2014. UPA. All rights Copyright 22. Adverbs 229 23. Passive Form of the Verb 241 24. Stative Form of the Verb 255 Almasi, Oswald, et al. <i>Swahili Grammar for Introductory and Intermediate Levels : Sarufi ya Kiswahili cha Ngazi ya Kwanza na Kati</i>, UPA, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1810394. Created from hselibrary-ebooks on 2019-06-09 04:05:13. iv Contents 25. Causative Form of the Verb 267 26. Prepositional Form of the Verb 277 27. Reciprocal Form of the Verb 287 28. Relatives—The amba- Relative, Relative Infixes and General Relative 295 29. Relatives—Manner, Time and Place 305 30. Imperatives Verbs and Their Negations 315 31. -KA- Tense and Negation 325 32. Conditional Tenses: -nge-, -ngali- and -ki- Tenses and Their Negations 335 33. Additional Tenses and Their Negations 343 34. Prepositions and Conjunctions 353 35. Common Swahili Questions and Answers 363 36. Interjections, Idiomatic Expressions and Impersonal Subjects 371 37. Subjunctives 379 38. Diminutive, Augmentative and Collective Nouns 389 39. Direct and Reported Speech 397 40. Swahili Proverbs 415 41. Appendix: Important Charts 423 42. Swahili Vocabulary Dictionary 427 About the Authors 453 Copyright © 2014. UPA. All rights reserved. © 2014. UPA. All rights Copyright Almasi, Oswald, et al. <i>Swahili Grammar for Introductory and Intermediate Levels : Sarufi ya Kiswahili cha Ngazi ya Kwanza na Kati</i>, UPA, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1810394. Created from hselibrary-ebooks on 2019-06-09 04:05:13. v Foreword About this Book his book is intended for University students who are interested in Tlearning the Swahili language at the Introductory and Intermediate levels. This book consists of 40 teaching chapters, and each chapter is arranged in the following manner: 1. An Introduction of the main concepts that will be dealt with in the chapter. 2. Sections which present the chapter’s material broken down into easier to understand concepts. 3. Examples for most Sections which help the student under- stand the concepts being taught. 4. Practice Exercises, so the student can begin to use the knowl- edge they have acquired. 5. A Vocabulary list of all new words taught in the chapter. After the new word has been encountered it will not appear in the Vocabulary of a following chapter but can be found at the back of the book in the Swahili Vocabulary Dictionary which is a complete dictionary of all the words used in this textbook. It is expected that the Vocabulary will be memo- rized by the students at their own speed. 6. Answers to Practice Exercises so students can confirm and correct the Practice Exercises they have just completed within the chapter. Copyright © 2014. UPA. All rights reserved. © 2014. UPA. All rights Copyright Note on Vocabulary This note is about how Swahili Vocabulary is presented and organized in this book. Firstly, all Swahili words, prefixes, infixes, suffixes and sen- Almasi, Oswald, et al. <i>Swahili Grammar for Introductory and Intermediate Levels : Sarufi ya Kiswahili cha Ngazi ya Kwanza na Kati</i>, UPA, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1810394. Created from hselibrary-ebooks on 2019-06-09 04:05:21. vi Foreword tences are presented in italics, to more easily find and identify them. In the Vocabulary Section, when presenting a new Swahili noun the singu- lar form of the noun is written first, followed by a forward slash (/) and then the Noun Class Prefix which is attached to make the noun plural. The Noun Class Prefix of course also helps in identifying which of the 6 main Noun Classes that the noun belongs to. Finally, the English transla- tion is provided. For example the noun daktari (borrowed from the En- glish word “doctor”) would be found in the Vocabulary as follows: daktari/ma- doctor(s) As you can see, the singular noun daktari comes first followed by the ma- which would make the noun madaktari which is the plural noun “doctors”. The singular noun is always first so the Vocabulary can be in alphabetical order. However some nouns do not have a plural or their singular and plural forms are the same and so there would be no forward slash (/) or prefix. The 6 main Noun Classes and the formation of singu- lar and plural nouns will be taught in their relevant chapters. Copyright © 2014. UPA. All rights reserved. © 2014. UPA. All rights Copyright Almasi, Oswald, et al. <i>Swahili Grammar for Introductory and Intermediate Levels : Sarufi ya Kiswahili cha Ngazi ya Kwanza na Kati</i>, UPA, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1810394. Created from hselibrary-ebooks on 2019-06-09 04:05:21. vii Acknowledgments and Dedication here are many people and organizations the authors would like to Tthank: Atin Lal, Professor Lioba Moshi, Fatema Pardhan, Carolyn Luguya, Professor Grace B. Nyamongo, Ramadhan Ramadhan, Profes- sor Grace Puja, Mohamed Yasin, Mohamed Noor, Professor Tom Ndege, Swahili Poet Said Nuweisr, Jeanne Guillaume formerly librarian for New College Library (Donald G. Ivey Library), National Swahili Council (BAKITA), Executive Officer for Tanzania Writer’s Association (UWAVITA) Mr. Abasi Mkuwaje, The Department of Languages, Lit- eratures and Linguistics at York University and The University of Toronto, for their advice, observations, assistance and continuing support. We especially wish to thank Mary Almasi for her advice and loving support and Atta Almasi for assisting us with market research; Arash Wared for his knowledge of linguistic concepts and rules; Byron Court and Amabel Court for their technical knowledge and assistance in all matters both computer hardware and software related; Mr and Mrs. Gulam Pardhan for their wonderful hospitality in Tanzania. This book is dedicated to all of our friends, families, and supporters who offered us all the support they could and put up with us when the going got tough. In addition each author has their own special dedication: To my wonderful wife Mary Almasi for her patience and enduring love, my children Malkia, Kojo, Atta and Faustin who spent many nights wondering when their father would return, as well as Mzee Simon Kayoro who supported me when I needed his help. —Professor Oswald Almasi Copyright © 2014. UPA. All rights reserved. © 2014. UPA. All rights Copyright Almasi, Oswald, et al. <i>Swahili Grammar for Introductory and Intermediate Levels : Sarufi ya Kiswahili cha Ngazi ya Kwanza na Kati</i>, UPA, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1810394. Created from hselibrary-ebooks on 2019-06-09 04:05:29. viii Acknowledgments and Dedication To Princess Carla for inspiring me with her determination and out- right stubbornness, keeping me young in heart and mind, and making me realize taking the hard road has its own rewards. —Michael David Fallon To a wonderful husband Arash Wared for his optimism and never ending support. I would also like to extend my gratitude to my beautiful sister Fatema Pardhan, my parents and my in laws, the Pardhans and Wareds, for their constant enthusiasm and love. —Nazish Pardhan Wared Finally the authors wish to thank each other for the dedication and long hours working through every problem, for refusing to give up on this book or each other, and for forgiving each other. Copyright © 2014. UPA. All rights reserved. © 2014. UPA. All rights Copyright Almasi, Oswald, et al. <i>Swahili Grammar for Introductory and Intermediate Levels : Sarufi ya Kiswahili cha Ngazi ya Kwanza na Kati</i>, UPA, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1810394. Created from hselibrary-ebooks on 2019-06-09 04:05:29. Chapter 1 About the Swahili Language he Swahili language or “Kiswahili” is discussed in relation to its Thistory, geography, different dialects, and the spread of Kiswahili through the centuries. This chapter will also cover the status of the lan- guage in the world today and some aspects of cultural significance that the Swahili learner should be familiar with. Kiswahili is a Bantu language that belongs to the Niger-Congo lan- guage family. The word Bantu means “people.” The languages of Baganda in Uganda, Sotho in Lesotho, Zulu in South Africa and Kikuyu in Kenya are other examples of Bantu languages. Although these languages are not mutually intelligible, they are all derived from one common ancestral language and share some basic vocabulary, word building processes and sentence structure.1 For example, the word for person in Kiswahili is mtu meaning “person” or watu meaning “people.” Both the singular and plural forms of the word are very similar in many Bantu languages as shown in Table 1.1 TABLE 1.1 Table showing some Bantu languages Bantu Language Country Singular Plural Baganda Uganda omuntu abantu Sotho Lesotho motho batho Copyright © 2014.