Swahili Noun Classes
Most languages in the world, with English being the main exception, classify nouns into different groups known as noun classes. Historically, the division of nouns into noun classes in Swahili was based on how the East African people perceived the world. For instance, they
Grouped human beings into one class, animals into another class, sharp and elongated objects into another class and so on. As time passed, the East African region came into increasing contact with the outside world initially due to trade expansion slot bonus new member 100 and later, colonialism. This contact caused the Swahili language to borrow new words from other languages such as English, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi and so forth. The increase in Swahili vocabulary brought about the need to revise and expand the noun classes. Currently, nouns are classified into 8 noun classes. Listed below are the names of the noun classes and a brief description of what they contain.
- M-/WA- class contains human beings.
- M-/MI- class contains trees, plants, etc.
- JI-/MA- class contains fruits, parts of plants, etc. It also contains mass nouns and collectives.
- KI-/VI- class contains objects useful to humans and artifacts, etc.
- N- class contains words borrowed from other languages, names of animals and relationship nouns, etc.
- U- class contains household objects, names of countries, abstract nouns and qualities.
- PA- class contains locatives.
- KU- class contains verbal nouns.
About half of the Swahili noun classes are meaningful semantic groups—the nouns within those classes all have a lot in common (e.g. living things, kinds of plants, etc). The other half of the noun classes are not meaningful semantic groups—the nouns within these classes don’t have a whole lot in common.
“Agreement” among nouns, verbs, and adjectives is the key to the Swahili language, and noun classes themselves determine that agreement. The only secret to learning these noun classes is through of memorization. It will take time, but you will get them quite easily. And once you do, the Swahili language will make a whole lot more sense.
We’ll be building a chart to keep track of all the many ways noun classes shape the language around them. We’ll start simply by noting the different classes, and the noun class prefixes that distinguish them. There are technically 18 classes of Swahili nouns, but only 16 are actually used.
Noun Class Prefix | Representative Noun | Semantic Group | Verb Conjugation | |
Morphological | Syntax |
|
|
|
m-/mw- | a | Mtu (person) | Living things (s) | Mtoto anasoma (the child is reading) |
Wa- | wa | Watu (people) | Living things (p) | Watoto wanasoma (the children are reading) |
m-/mw- | u | Mti (tree) | Trees and other (s) | Mti umekauka (the tree has dried) |
mi- | i | Miti (trees) | Trees and other (p) | Miti imekauka (the trees have dried) |
-(no prefix)/-ji | li | Tunda (fruit) | Fruits and groups (s) | Tunda Limeiva (the fruit has ripen) |
Ma- | ya | Matunda (fruits) | Fruits and groups (p) | Matunda yameiva (the fruits have ripen) |
Ki/ch | ki | Kitu (Thing) | Things (s) | Kiti kimevunjika (the chair has broken) |
vi-/vy- | vi | Vitu (things) | Things(p) | Viti vimevunjika (the chairs have broken) |
-(no prefix) | i | Nyumba (house) | No category(s) | Nyumba imeanguka (the house has fallen down) |
-(no prefix) | zi | Nyumba (houses) | No category(P) | Nyumba zimeanguka (the houses have fallen down) |
u-* | u | Ukuta (wall) | No category (s) | Ukuta umeanguka (the wall has fallen) |
zi | zi | Kuta (walls) | No category | Kuta zimeanguka (the walls have fallen) |
u- | u | Upendo (love) | Abstract concepts | Upendo unavutia (the love is appealing) |
u- | u | Upendo (love) | Abstract concepts | Upendo unavutia (the love is appealing) |
[pa-]** | pa | Mahali (place) | Specific place | Mahali panapendeza (the place is attractive) |
[ku-]** | ku | (mahali( (place) | General place | Mahali kupendeza (the place is attractive) |
[mu-]** | mu | (mahali) (place) | Internal place | Mahali mnapendeza (the place is attractive) |
