KISWAHILI FOR BEGINNERS: TOPIC EIGHT 2.

We proceed with our topic Noun

3. Nomino dhahania (Abstract)

A noun denoting an idea , quality or state rather than a concrete object.

E.g love, happiness, freedom, danger and truth

4.Nomino za kawaida (Concrete noun)

A noun denoting a material object rather than an abstract quality, state or action eg dog, building, tree.

The division of noun in Kiswahili language into classes and not into masculine , feminine and neuter genders .the noun classes are distinguished by their nominal prefixes.

Swahili nouns , therefore ,consist of a roof of the word and a prefix as follows.

From the stem tu, and the prefix in we get mtu “a person” or human being likewise from the root tu and prefix mi we get kitu “a thing “or” something”

The plural of the two words are formed from the same roof with prefixes Wa and Vi respectively; this watu (people) Vitu “things”

For the sake of classification we count mtu,watu,as one class,and kitu,vitu as another class.in the following pages we are going to deal with each class separately.

There are eight classes but most of the nouns are found in the first five classes ,as will seen below.

In this class the nouns begin with M in the singular and Wa in the Plural. They usually denote human being, they are:

Singular.                                                                    Plural

Mtu, man, person.                                                    Watu, people, persons

Mke, wife.                                                                   Wake, wives

Mume, husband.                                                          Waume, husband’s

Exercise

Change into the plural

1. mwongo, mwizi, mume, mwalimu, mwanamke, mwanaume,