Luganda language
Encyclopedia
Ganda, or Luganda is the major language of Uganda
, spoken by over sixteen million Ganda and other people mainly in Southern Uganda, including the capital Kampala
. It belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger–Congo
language family. Typologically
, it is a highly agglutinating language with subject–verb–object word order and nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
.
With about seven million first-language-speakers in the Buganda
region and about ten million others with a working knowledge, it is the most widely spoken Ugandan language, and as second language it follows English
and precedes Swahili
. The language is used in some primary schools in Buganda as pupils begin to learn English, the primary official language
of Uganda. Until the 1960s, Ganda was also the official language of instruction in primary schools in Eastern Uganda
.
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.
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 semivowel
, all vowels are long. Before a prenasalised consonant, all vowels are long. Before a geminate, all vowels are short. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.
Apart from /l~r/, all these consonants can be geminated
, even at the start of a word: bbiri /bːíri/ 'two', kitto /cítːo/ 'cold'. The approximants
/w/ and /j/ are geminated as /ɡːw/ and /ɟː/: eggwanga /eɡːwáːŋɡa/ 'country'; jjenje /ɟːéːɲɟe/ 'cricket'—from the roots -wanga /wáːŋɡa/ and -yenje /jéːɲɟe/ respectively, with the singular noun prefix e- that doubles the following consonant.
Apart from /l~r/, /w/ and /j/, all consonants can also be prenasalised—prefixed with a nasal consonant
. This consonant will be /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ or /ŋ/ according to the place of articulation
, and belongs to the same syllable as the consonant it precedes.
The liquid
/l~r/ becomes /d/ when geminated
or prenasalised. For example ndaba /n̩dába/ 'I see' (from the root -laba with the subject prefix n-); eddagala /edːáɡala/ '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 morphological
processes require this, the gemination is dropped and the syllable /zi/ is inserted, which can then be prenasalised. For example when the prefix en- is aded to the adjective -ddugavu 'black' the result is enzirugavu /eːnzíruɡavu/.
The nasals
/m/, /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ can be syllabic
at the start of a word: nkima /ɲ̩címa/ (or [n̩tʃíma]) 'monkey', mpa /m̩pá/ 'I give', nnyinyonnyola /ɲ̩ɲiɲóɲːola/ or /ɲːiɲóɲːola/ '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.
Tones are carried on morae
. In Luganda, a short vowel has one mora and a long vowel has two morae. A geminate or prenasalised consonant has one mora. (A vowel followed by a following prenasalised consonant has two morae including the one belonging to the prenasalised consonant.)
Prefixes often change the tones in a word. For example Baganda /bàgáándà/ has LHHL, but adding the initial vowel a- /à/ gives Abaganda /àbàgáàndá/ with L-LHLH. (Here, long vowels are transcribed double (/aa/) rather than with the length mark (/aː/), to allow for tones to be written on each mora.)
s can take any of the following forms:
where V = vowel
, C = single consonant
(including nasals and semivowels but excluding geminates), G = geminate consonant, N = nasal consonant
, S = semivowel
These forms are subject to certain phonotactic
restrictions:
The net effect of this is that all Luganda words follow the general pattern of alternating consonant cluster
s and vowel
s, beginning with either but always ending in a vowel:
where V = vowel
, X = consonant cluster
, (V) = optional vowel
This is reflected in the syllabification
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.
plosives /c/ and /ɟ/ may be realised with some affrication
—either as [cç] and [ɟʝ] or as postalveolars
/tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively.
In speech, word-final vowel
s are often elided
in these conditioning environments:
For example, ekiddugavu /ecídːuɡavu/ 'black' may be pronounced [ecídːuɡavʷu] or [ecídːuɡavʷ]. Similarly lwaki /lwáːci/ 'why' may be pronounced [lwáːci], [lwáːc] or [lwáːtʃ].
Long vowels before prenasalised fricatives (that is, before /nf/, /nv/, /ns/ or /nz/) may be nasalised
, and the nasal is then often elided. Additionally, when not elided (for example phrase-initially), the /n/ usually becomes a labiodental
in /nf/, /nv/. For example:
The liquid
/l~r/ has two allophones [l] and [r], conditioned by the preceding vowel. It's usually realised as a tap or flap
[ɾ] after a close
unrounded vowel (i.e. after /e/, /eː/, /i/ or /iː/), and as a lateral approximant [l] elsewhere. However, there's considerable variation in this, and using one allophone instead of the other causes no ambiguity. So lwaki /lwáːci/ 'why' may also be pronounced [rwáːci], [ɾwáːci], [ɹwáːtʃi] etc.
s yields the expanded consonant set below:
This simplifies the phonotactic rules so that all syllables are of one of three forms:
where V = vowel
, C = consonant
(including geminate and prenasalised consonants), N = nasal consonant
, S = semivowel
(i.e. either /j/ or /w/).
Vowel length
is then only distinctive before simple consonants (i.e. simple plosives, simple fricatives, simple nasals, approximants and liquids)—not before geminate or nasalised consonants or at the end of a word.
, which has been standardised since 1947, uses a Roman alphabet augmented with one new letter ŋ
and a digraph
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 vowels
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. Stress
and tones
are not represented in the spelling.
The following phonemes are always represented with the same letter or combination of letters:
The following phonemes can be represented with two letters or combinations of letters, with the alternation predictable from the context:
The following phonemes can be represented with two letters or combinations of letters, with unpredictable alternation between the two:
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.
s in Luganda are spelt with the same letters as in many other languages (for example Spanish
):
As mentioned above, the distinction between long and short vowels is phonemic
and is therefore represented in the alphabet. Long vowels are written as double (when length cannot be inferred from the context) and short vowels are written single. For example:
In certain contexts, phonotactic
constraints mean that a vowel must be long, and in these cases it is not written double:
For example:
But
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'.
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 English
:
A few letters have unusual values:
The letters l and r represent the same sound in Luganda—/l/—but the orthography requires r after e or i, and l elsewhere:
There are also two letters whose pronunciation depends on the following letter:
Compare this to the pronunciation of c and g in many Romance languages. As in the Romance languages the 'softening letter' (in Italian
i; in French
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).
Finally the sounds /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are spelt n before another consonant with the same place of articulation
(in other words, before other palatals
and velars
respectively) rather than ny and ŋ:
* 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 orthographies, 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 diaeresis mark to distinguish this combination from ny.
Other letters (h, q, x) are not used in the alphabet, but are often used to write loanword
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 English
words.
The full alphabet, including both standard Luganda letters and those used only for loanwords, is as follows:
and number
, 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:
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 class
es. Some authorities count singular
and plural
forms as two separate noun classes while others treat the singular–plural pairs as gender
s. 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 grammatical
and semantic
relationship between 'masculine singular' and 'masculine plural' (for example Mann 'man' and Männer 'men') and to treat them as two different noun classes out of a total of six would be artificial; so number is regarded as being distinct from gender, giving three genders and two numbers. Applying this method to Luganda gives 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).
The following table shows how the ten traditional classes of Luganda map onto the Proto-Bantu noun classes:
As the table shows, Proto-Bantu's polyplural classes
(6 and 10) are treated as separate in this article.
As is the case with most languages, the distribution of nouns among the classes is essentially arbitrary, but there are some loose patterns:
The class that a noun belongs to can usually be determined by its prefix:
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 erya 'The dog is eating' vs Embwa zirya '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:
Other stems use the full prefix:
There are also some nouns that have no prefix. Their genders must simply be learnt by rote:
Adjective
s, verb
s, certain adverb
s, the possessive and a few special forms of conjunctions
are inflected to agree with nouns in Luganda.
and state.
Number is indicated by replacing the singular prefix with the plural prefix. For example omusajja 'man', abasajja 'men'; ekisanirizo 'comb', ebisanirizo 'combs'. All word classes agree with nouns in number and class.
State is similar to case
but applies to verbs and other parts of speech as well as nouns, pronouns and adjectives. There are two states in Luganda, which may be called the base state and the topic state. The base state is unmarked and the topic state is indicated by the presence of the initial vowel.
The topic state is used for nouns in the following conditions:
The base state is used for the following conditions:
(as well as most Indo-European
and Afro-Asiatic languages
), adjective
s must agree
in gender
and number
with the noun
they qualify. For example:
In these examples the adjective -lungi changes its prefix according to the gender (Class I or II) and number (singular or plural) of the noun it's qualifying (compare Italian
bella ragazza, belle ragazze, bel ragazzo, bei ragazzi). In some cases the prefix causes the initial l of the stem to change to n or r.
Attributive adjectives agree in state with the noun they qualify, but predicative adjectives never take the initial vowel. Similarly, the subject relative
is formed by adding the initial vowel to the verb (because a main verb is a predicate.
must also agree
with its subject
in gender and number (as opposed to number only as in Indo-European languages). For example:
Here, the verb nywa changes its prefix according to the gender and number of its subject (compare Arabic
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 number
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 antecedents
:
See also the detailed section on verbs below.
s in the grammatical
sense are far rarer in Luganda than in, say, English
, being mostly translated by other parts of speech—for example adjective
s or particles
.
When the adverb is qualifying a verb
, it's usually translated by an adjective, which then agrees with the subject
of the verb. For example:
Here, 'badly' is translated with the adjective -bi 'bad, ugly', which is declined
to agree with the subject.
Other concepts can be translated by invariant particles
. for example the intensifying particle
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 gender
and number
but also in person
), but which are inflected differently. The first group is conjugated
in the same way as verb
s and contains only a few words: tya 'how', ti 'like this', tyo 'like that':
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':
Note how, in the last two examples, the adverb -kka agrees with whichever antecedent
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).
noun class
(according to the possessed noun). An alternative way of thinking about the Luganda possessive is as a single word whose initial consonant cluster
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:
If the possessor is a personal pronoun
, the separate possessive form is not used. Instead, the following personal possessives
are used:
Compare these to the French
possessive adjective
s:
There are also a few noun
s that take special forms when used with a possessive:
, number
, tense
, mood
and the gender
of the subject
and, if present, objects
.
of a verb is indicated with a prefix that agrees with the antecedent
in person
and number
. In the third person the prefix also agrees in noun class
with its antecedent.
The subject prefixes for the personal pronoun
s are:
For impersonal pronouns the subject prefixes are:
When a verb governs one or more objects
, they are shown with prefix
es that agree with the antecedent
in person
and number
. As with the subject prefix, the third person
prefixes also agree with their antecedents in noun class
. The personal object prefixes are:
For the third person the object prefixes are:
Note the similarity between each subject prefix and the corresponding object prefix: they are the same in all cases except Class I and the singular of Class III. Note also the correspondence between the object prefixes and the noun prefixes (see Nouns above): when every m- in the noun prefix is replaced by a g- in the object prefix, the only differences are in Classes I and III.
The direct object prefix is usually inserted directly after the subject prefix:
The indirect object prefix comes after the direct object:
The negative impersonal subject prefixes are:
When used with object relatives or the narrative tense (see below), the negative is formed with the prefix ta-, which is inserted after the subject and object affixes:
es:
The modified form of verb stems is the only real source of irregularity in Luganda's verbal system. Monosyllabic verbs, in particular, have unpredictable modified forms:
The present tense
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).
The present perfect is just the subject prefix plus the modified stem:
The present perfect in Luganda is sometimes slightly weaker in its past meaning than in English
. It's often used with intransitive verb
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.
The near past is formed by inserting the prefix -a- before the modified form of the stem. This prefix, being a vowel, has the effect of changing the form of the subject prefixes:
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 prefix a- as the near past, but using the simple form of the stem:
The far past tense is used for events that happened more than 18 hours ago, and can also be used as a weak pluperfect. This is the tense that's used in novel
s and storytelling
.
The near future is used when describing things that are going to happen within the next 18 hours. It's formed with the prefix naa- on the simple form of the stem:
In the second person
singular and the singular of Class III, the prefix 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 prefix is used:
The far future is used for events that will take place more than 18 hours in the future. It's formed with the prefix li- on the simple form of the stem:
Note how the l of the tense prefix becomes a d after the n- of the first person
singular subject prefix.
The conditional mood
is formed with the prefix andi- and the modified form of the stem:
The subjunctive is a tense in Luganda, rather than a mood
as in some languages. It's formed by changing the final -a of the stem to an -e:
The negative is formed either with the auxiliary verb
lema ('to fail') plus the infinitive
:
or using the same forms as the negative of the near future:
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 prefix kya-:
In the negative it means 'no longer':
With intransitive verb
s, especially verbs of physical attitude (see Present Perfect above), the kya- prefix 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 prefix aaka-:
This tense is found only in the affirmative
.
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 prefix nna-:
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 vowel
) followed by the present tense:
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 prefix si- placed immediately after the object prefixes (or after the subject prefix if no object prefixes are used):
Compare this with the negative construction used with the object relatives.
, with the use of auxiliary verb
s. Some of Luganda's auxiliary verbs can also be used as main verbs; some are always auxiliaries:
The passive is produced by replacing the final -a with -wa or -ibwa/-ebwa:
The reflexive
is created by adding the prefix e- to the verb stem (equivalent to replacing the oku- prefix of the infinitive
with okwe-):
Many verbs are used only in their reflexive form:
Reduplication is formed by doubling the stem, and generally adds the sense of repetition or intensity:
The applied
, or prepositional, modification, allows the verb to take an extra object
and gives it the meaning 'to do for or with (someone or something). It's formed with the suffix ir- inserted before the final -a of the verb: okwebaka 'to sleep' → okwebakira 'to sleep on (e.g. a piece of furniture)'
Adding the applied suffix twice gives the 'augmentative applied' modification, which has an alternative applied sense, usually further removed from the original sense than the simple applied modification:
The causative
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
transitive
: okufuuka 'to become' → okufuusa 'to turn (something or someone) into (something else)'
Appling two causative modifications results in the 'second causative':
The neuter modification, also known as the stative
, is similar to the '-able' suffix in English
, 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 suffix -ik/-ek before the verb's final -a:
The intransitive conversive modification reverses the meaning of an intransitive verb
and leaves it intransitive, or reverses the meaning of a transitive verb
and makes it intransitive, similar to English's
'un-' prefix. It's formed with the prefix uk- inserted before the verb's final -a:
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
and makes it transitive
, or reverses the meaning of a transitive verb and leaves it transitive. It's formed with the suffix ul-:
Two conversive suffixes create the augmentative conversive modification:
The reciprocal modification is formed with the suffix -na or -gana (or less commonly -ŋŋa):
The progressive
is formed with the suffix -nga. It's used with finite verb
s to give the sense of continuousness:
This is not really a modification but a clitic
, so it's always applied 'after' any grammatical inflexions.
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.
s is quite complicated. The numbers 'one' to 'five' are specialised numerical adjective
s that agree
with the noun
they qualify
. 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 '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):
Numerical nouns:
Standard nouns:
Digits are specified from left to right, combined with na (following kkumi) and mu (following any other word). For example:
The numerical adjectives agree with the qualified noun:
but
and
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', bukumi 'tens of thousands'—but not nkumi 'thousands') are usually omitted, as long as this doesn't result in ambiguity.
For example:
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.
Frank Kigozi Picareader text to speech language software.
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, spoken by over sixteen million Ganda and other people mainly in Southern Uganda, including the capital Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
. It belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger–Congo
Niger–Congo languages
The 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. Typologically
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
, it is a highly agglutinating language with subject–verb–object word order and nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
Morphosyntactic alignment
In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs...
.
With about seven million first-language-speakers in the Buganda
Buganda
Buganda is a subnational kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Ganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda, comprising all of Uganda's Central Region, including the Ugandan capital Kampala, with the exception of the disputed eastern Kayunga District...
region and about ten million others with a working knowledge, it is the most widely spoken Ugandan language, and as second language it follows English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and precedes Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
. The language is used in some primary schools in Buganda as pupils begin to learn English, the primary official language
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. 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, Ganda was also the official language of instruction in primary schools in Eastern Uganda
Eastern Region, Uganda
Eastern Region is a region of Uganda. It is divided into the following districts:...
.
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
| Front Front vowel 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 in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in 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 Close vowel 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 Close-mid vowel 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 Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which 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 semivowel
Semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
, all vowels are long. Before a prenasalised consonant, 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.| Labial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar 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... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant 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).... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p b | t d | c ɟ | k ɡ |
| Fricative Fricative consonant 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... |
f v | s z | ||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɲ | ŋ |
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
l~r | j | w | |
| Trill Trill consonant 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.... |
Apart from /l~r/, all these consonants can be geminated
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
, even at the start of a word: bbiri /bːíri/ 'two', kitto /cítːo/ 'cold'. The approximants
Approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
/w/ and /j/ are geminated as /ɡːw/ and /ɟː/: eggwanga /eɡːwáːŋɡa/ 'country'; jjenje /ɟːéːɲɟe/ 'cricket'—from the roots -wanga /wáːŋɡa/ and -yenje /jéːɲɟe/ respectively, with the singular noun prefix e- that doubles the following consonant.
Apart from /l~r/, /w/ and /j/, all consonants can also be prenasalised—prefixed with a nasal consonant
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
. This consonant will be /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ or /ŋ/ according to the place of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
, and belongs to the same syllable as the consonant it precedes.
The liquid
Liquid consonant
In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:...
/l~r/ becomes /d/ when geminated
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
or prenasalised. For example ndaba /n̩dába/ 'I see' (from the root -laba with the subject prefix n-); eddagala /edːáɡala/ '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 morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
processes require this, the gemination is dropped and the syllable /zi/ is inserted, which can then be prenasalised. For example when the prefix en- is aded to the adjective -ddugavu 'black' the result is enzirugavu /eːnzíruɡavu/.
The nasals
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
/m/, /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ can be syllabic
Syllabic
Syllabic may refer to:*Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages.*Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables...
at the start of a word: nkima /ɲ̩címa/ (or [n̩tʃíma]) 'monkey', mpa /m̩pá/ 'I give', nnyinyonnyola /ɲ̩ɲiɲóɲːola/ or /ɲːiɲóɲːola/ '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.
Tone
Luganda is a tonal language, with three tones: high (á), low (à) and falling (â). A falling tone may occur only on the last syllable of a word. High and low tones may occur in any position.Tones are carried on morae
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
. In Luganda, a short vowel has one mora and a long vowel has two morae. A geminate or prenasalised consonant has one mora. (A vowel followed by a following prenasalised consonant has two morae including the one belonging to the prenasalised consonant.)
Prefixes often change the tones in a word. For example Baganda /bàgáándà/ has LHHL, but adding the initial vowel a- /à/ gives Abaganda /àbàgáàndá/ with L-LHLH. (Here, long vowels are transcribed double (/aa/) rather than with the length mark (/aː/), to allow for tones to be written on each mora.)
Phonotactics
SyllableSyllable
A 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 = vowel
Vowel
In 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 consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
(including nasals and semivowels but excluding geminates), G = geminate consonant, N = nasal consonant
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
, S = semivowel
Semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
These forms are subject to certain phonotactic
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
restrictions:
- Two vowels may not appear adjacent to one another. When morphologicalMorphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
or grammaticalGrammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
rules cause two vowels to meet, the first vowel is elidedElisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
or reduced to a semivowelSemivowelIn phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
and the second is lengthened if possible. - A vowel following a consonant–semivowel combination (except [ɡːw]) is always long. After [ɡːw] a vowel can be either long or short.
- A vowel followed by a nasal consonantNasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
–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 velarVelar consonantVelars 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 [k] and [ɡ] may not appear before the vowel [i] or the semivowel [j]. In this position they become the corresponding postalveolarPostalveolar consonantPostalveolar 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...
affricatesAffricate consonantAffricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
[tʃ] and [dʒ] respectively. - The consonants [j], [w] and [l]~[r] can't be geminatedGeminationIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
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 cluster
Consonant cluster
In 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 vowel
Vowel
In 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:
- (V)XVXV...XV
where V = vowel
Vowel
In 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 cluster
Consonant cluster
In 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 syllabification
Syllabification
Syllabification is the separation of a word into syllables, whether spoken or written.It is also used to describe the process of something like a consonant turning into a syllable, but this is not discussed here...
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
The palatalPalatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
plosives /c/ and /ɟ/ may be realised with some affrication
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
—either as [cç] and [ɟʝ] or as postalveolars
Postalveolar consonant
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...
/tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively.
In speech, word-final vowel
Vowel
In 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 elided
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
in these conditioning environments:
- Word-final /u/ can be silent after /f/, /fː/, /v/ or /vː/
- Word-final /i/ can be silent after /c/, /cː/, /ɟ/ or /ɟː/
For example, ekiddugavu /ecídːuɡavu/ 'black' may be pronounced [ecídːuɡavʷu] or [ecídːuɡavʷ]. Similarly lwaki /lwáːci/ 'why' may be pronounced [lwáːci], [lwáːc] or [lwáːtʃ].
Long vowels before prenasalised fricatives (that is, before /nf/, /nv/, /ns/ or /nz/) may be nasalised
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
, and the nasal is then often elided. Additionally, when not elided (for example phrase-initially), the /n/ usually becomes a labiodental
Labiodental consonant
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
in /nf/, /nv/. For example:
- nfa /fa/ 'I'm dying' is pronounced [ɱfʷa]
- musanvu /musáːnvu/ 'seven' may be pronounced [musáːɱvʷu], [musãːɱvʷu], [musãːvʷu] or [musãːɱvʷ]
- tonsaba /toːnsába/ 'don't ask me' may be pronounced [toːnsába], [tõːsába] or [tõːnsába]
The liquid
Liquid consonant
In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:...
/l~r/ has two allophones [l] and [r], conditioned by the preceding vowel. It's usually realised as a tap or flap
Flap consonant
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
[ɾ] after a close
Close vowel
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...
unrounded vowel (i.e. after /e/, /eː/, /i/ or /iː/), and as a lateral approximant [l] elsewhere. However, there's considerable variation in this, and using one allophone instead of the other causes no ambiguity. So lwaki /lwáːci/ 'why' may also be pronounced [rwáːci], [ɾwáːci], [ɹwáːtʃi] etc.
Alternative analysis
Treating the geminate and prenasalised consonants as separate phonemePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s yields the expanded consonant set below:
| Labial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar 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... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant 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).... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple plosive | p b | t d | c ɟ | k ɡ |
| Geminate plosive | pː bː | tː dː | cː ɟː | kː ɡː |
| Prenasalised plosive | mp mb | nt nd | ɲc ɲɟ | ŋk ŋɡ |
| Simple fricative Fricative consonant 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... |
f v | s z | ||
| Geminate fricative | fː vː | sː zː | ||
| Prenasalised fricative | ɱf ɱv | ns nz | ||
| Simple nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɲ | ŋ |
| Geminate nasal | mː | nː | ɲː | ŋː |
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
j | w | ||
| Liquid Liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:... |
l |
This simplifies the phonotactic rules so that all syllables are of one of three forms:
- V (only as the first syllable of a word)
- CV
- CSV
where V = vowel
Vowel
In 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 = consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
(including geminate and prenasalised consonants), N = nasal consonant
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
, S = semivowel
Semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
(i.e. either /j/ or /w/).
Vowel length
Vowel length
In 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. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
is then only distinctive before simple consonants (i.e. simple plosives, simple fricatives, simple nasals, approximants and liquids)—not before geminate or nasalised consonants or at the end of a word.
Orthography
Luganda spellingOrthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
, which has been standardised since 1947, uses a Roman alphabet augmented with one new letter ŋ
Eng (letter)
Eng 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.-History:...
and a digraph
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is 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 vowels
Vowel length
In 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. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
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. Stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
and tones
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
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 /l~r/, /c/ and /ɟ/
- The palatalsPalatal consonantPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
/c/ and /ɟ/, 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 /i/
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 liquidLiquid consonantIn phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:...
/l~r/ (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 palatals /c/ and /ɟ/, when followed by a long vowel, by a short vowel and a geminate consonant, or by an i sound (/i/ or /iː/) (can be spelt with c, j, with ky, gy, or, before i, with k, g)
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 vowelVowel
In 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 Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
):
- a /a/
- e /e/
- i /i/
- o /o/
- u /u/
As mentioned above, the distinction between long and short vowels is phonemic
Phoneme
In 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 alphabet. Long vowels are written as double (when length cannot be inferred from the context) and short vowels are written single. For example:
- bana /bana/ 'four (e.g. people)' vs baana /baːna/ 'children'
- sera /sela/ 'dance' vs seera /seːla/ 'overcharge'
- sira /sila/ 'mingle' vs siira /siːla/ 'walk slowly'
- kola /kola/ 'do' vs koola /koːla/ '(to) weed'
- tuma /tuma/ 'send' vs tuuma /tuːma/ '(to) name'
In certain contexts, phonotactic
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
constraints mean that a vowel must be long, and in these cases it is not written double:
- A vowel followed by a prenasalised consonant
- 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 /ecúːma/ 'metal'
- ŋŋenda /ŋ̩ŋéːnda/ 'I go'
But
- eggwolezo /eɡːwólezo/ 'court house'
- eggwoolezo /eɡːwóːlezo/ '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 [ɲ], each consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
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 English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
:
- b /b/
- d /d/
- f /f/
- l /l/
- m /m/
- n /n/
- p /p/
- s /s/
- t /t/
- v /v/
- w /w/
- y /j/
- z /z/
A few letters have unusual values:
- c /c/
- j /ɟ/
- ny /ɲ/
- ŋ /ŋ/
The letters l and r represent the same sound in Luganda—/l/—but the orthography requires r after e or i, and l elsewhere:
- alinda /alíːnda/ 'she's waiting'
- akirinda /acilíːnda/ (or [aciríːnda]) 'she's waiting for it'
There are also two letters whose pronunciation depends on the following letter:
- k is pronounced /c/ (or /tʃ/) before i or y, /k/ elsewhere
- g is pronounced /ɟ/ (or /dʒ/) before i or y, /ɡ/ elsewhere
Compare this to the pronunciation of c and g in many Romance languages. As in the Romance languages the 'softening letter' (in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
i; in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
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).
Finally the sounds /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are spelt n before another consonant with the same place of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
(in other words, before other palatals
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
and velars
Velar consonant
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)....
respectively) rather than ny and ŋ:
- The combinations /ɲ̩ɲ/ and /ɲː/ are spelt nny
- The combination /ɲj/ is spelt nÿ (the diaeresis shows that the y is a separate letter rather than part of the ny digraph, and the /ɲ/ 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) is spelt n before c or j, or before a soft k or g
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 orthographies, 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 diaeresis mark to distinguish this combination from ny.
Other letters (h, q, x) are not used in the alphabet, but are often used to write loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
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 English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
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
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 genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
and number
Grammatical number
In 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:
- adjectiveAdjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
- verbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
(for subject and object roles) - pronounPronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
- possessivePossession (linguistics)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 genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
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 class
Noun class
In 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 singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
forms as two separate noun classes while others treat the singular–plural pairs as gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s. 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 grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
and semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
relationship between 'masculine singular' and 'masculine plural' (for example Mann 'man' and Männer 'men') and to treat them as two different noun classes out of a total of six would be artificial; so number is regarded as being distinct from gender, giving three genders and two numbers. Applying this method to Luganda gives 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).
The following table shows how the ten traditional classes of Luganda map onto the Proto-Bantu noun classes:
| Luganda Class | Number | Proto-Bantu Class |
|---|---|---|
| I | Singular | 1, 1a |
| Plural | 2 | |
| II | Singular | 3 |
| Plural | 4 | |
| III | Singular | 9 |
| Plural | 10 | |
| IV | Singular | 7 |
| Plural | 8 | |
| V | Singular | 5 |
| Plural | 6 | |
| VI | Singular | 12 |
| Plural | 14 | |
| VII | Singular | 11 |
| Plural | 10 | |
| VIII | Singular | 20 |
| Plural | 22 | |
| IX | Singular | 15 |
| Plural | 6 | |
| X | (no distinction) | 13 |
As the table shows, Proto-Bantu's polyplural classes
Polyplural noun class
In the study of Bantu languages, a polyplural noun class is a noun class that serves as the plural class for more than one singular class.For example, Proto-Bantu class 10 contains plurals of class 9 nouns and class 11 nouns, while class 6 contains plurals of class 5 nouns and class 15 nouns...
(6 and 10) are treated as separate in this article.
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 augmentativeAugmentativeAn augmentative is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size, but also in other attributes...
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 verbal nounVerbal nounIn linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...
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 pejorativePejorativePejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
forms: gubwa 'mutt' (from mbwa 'dog') - Class IX is mainly used for infinitiveInfinitiveIn 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 affirmativeAffirmativeAffirmative 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 nounVerbal nounIn linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...
s: kukola 'action, to do' (from the verbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
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 erya 'The dog is eating' vs Embwa zirya '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 (or caayi) 'tea', kaawa 'coffee'
- Class III: kkapa 'cat', gomesi 'gomesi (traditional East African women's formal dress)'
Adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, certain adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s, the possessive and a few special forms of conjunctions
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
are inflected to agree with nouns in Luganda.
Nouns
Nouns are inflected for numberGrammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and state.
Number is indicated by replacing the singular prefix with the plural prefix. For example omusajja 'man', abasajja 'men'; ekisanirizo 'comb', ebisanirizo 'combs'. All word classes agree with nouns in number and class.
State is similar to case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
but applies to verbs and other parts of speech as well as nouns, pronouns and adjectives. There are two states in Luganda, which may be called the base state and the topic state. The base state is unmarked and the topic state is indicated by the presence of the initial vowel.
The topic state is used for nouns in the following conditions:
- Subject of a sentence
- Object of an affirmative verb (other than the verb 'to be')
The base state is used for the following conditions:
- Object of a negative verb
- Object of a preposition
- Noun predicate (whether or not there's an explicit copula or verb 'to be')
Adjectives
As in other Niger–Congo languagesNiger–Congo languages
The 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...
(as well as most Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
and Afro-Asiatic languages
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
), adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s must agree
Agreement (linguistics)
In 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 to which it relates....
in gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
with the noun
Noun
In 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 .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
they qualify. For example:
- omuwala omulungi 'beautiful girl' (Class I, singularGrammatical numberIn 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, pluralPluralIn linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
) - omuti omulungi 'beautiful tree' (Class II, singular)
- emiti emirungi 'beautiful trees' (Class II, plural)
- emmotoka ennungi 'beautiful/good car(s)' (Class V, singular/plural)
In these examples the adjective -lungi changes its prefix according to the gender (Class I or II) and number (singular or plural) of the noun it's qualifying (compare Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
bella ragazza, belle ragazze, bel ragazzo, bei ragazzi). In some cases the prefix causes the initial l of the stem to change to n or r.
Attributive adjectives agree in state with the noun they qualify, but predicative adjectives never take the initial vowel. Similarly, the subject relative
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
is formed by adding the initial vowel to the verb (because a main verb is a predicate.
Verbs
As in other Bantu languages, every verbVerb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
must also agree
Agreement (linguistics)
In 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 to which it relates....
with its subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
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 Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
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 number
Grammatical number
In 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 antecedents
Antecedent (grammar)
In grammar, an antecedent is a noun, noun phrase, or clause to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. For example, in the passage "I did not see John because he wasn't there", "John" is the antecedent of the anaphor "he"; together "John" and "he" are called a coreference because they both refer...
:
- 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 adverbAdverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s in the grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
sense are far rarer in Luganda than in, say, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, being mostly translated by other parts of speech—for example adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s or particles
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
.
When the adverb is qualifying a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
, it's usually translated by an adjective, which then agrees with the subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
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 declined
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
to agree with the subject.
Other concepts can be translated by invariant particles
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
. for example the intensifying particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical 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 gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
but also in person
Grammatical person
Grammatical 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 conjugated
Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb 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 verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
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 antecedent
Antecedent (grammar)
In grammar, an antecedent is a noun, noun phrase, or clause to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. For example, in the passage "I did not see John because he wasn't there", "John" is the antecedent of the anaphor "he"; together "John" and "he" are called a coreference because they both refer...
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 pluralGrammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
noun class
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
(according to the possessed noun). An alternative way of thinking about the Luganda possessive is as a single word whose initial consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In 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 pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain 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 possessives
Possessive adjective
Possessive adjectives, also known as possessive determiners, are a part of speech that 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 French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
possessive adjective
Possessive adjective
Possessive adjectives, also known as possessive determiners, are a part of speech that 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 noun
Noun
In 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 .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
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
Grammatical 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...
, number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
and the gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
of the subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
and, if present, objects
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
.
Subject and objects
The subjectSubject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
of a verb is indicated with a prefix that agrees with the antecedent
Antecedent (grammar)
In grammar, an antecedent is a noun, noun phrase, or clause to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. For example, in the passage "I did not see John because he wasn't there", "John" is the antecedent of the anaphor "he"; together "John" and "he" are called a coreference because they both refer...
in person
Grammatical person
Grammatical 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 number
Grammatical number
In 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 class
Noun class
In 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 pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain 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 objects
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
, they are shown with prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es that agree with the antecedent
Antecedent
An 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 person
Grammatical person
Grammatical 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 number
Grammatical number
In 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 person
Grammatical person
Grammatical 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...
prefixes also agree with their antecedents in noun class
Noun class
In 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 prefixes 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 prefix: they are the same in all cases except Class I and the singular of Class III. Note also the correspondence between the object prefixes and the noun prefixes (see Nouns above): when every m- in the noun prefix is replaced by a g- in the object prefix, the only differences are in Classes I and III.
The direct object prefix 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 prefix 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 prefix 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'
Modified stem
To form some tenses, a special form of the verb stem, called the 'modified form', is used. 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 suffixSuffix
In linguistics, 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:
- -se
- -sse
- -ze
- -zze
- -izze
- -ezze
- -nye
- -nyi
- -ye
- -de
- -dde
The modified form of verb stems is the only real source of irregularity in Luganda's verbal system. Monosyllabic verbs, in particular, have unpredictable modified forms:
- okuba 'to be' -badde
- okufa 'to die' -fudde
- okugaana 'to deny, forbid' -gaanyi
- okuggwa 'to end' (intransitive) -wedde
- okuggya 'to remove' -ggye or -ggyidde
- okuggya 'to cook' (intransitive) -yidde
- okugwa 'to fall' -gudde
- okujja 'to come' -zze
- okukka 'to go down, come down' -sse
- okukwata 'to catch' -kutte
- okulwa 'to delay' -ludde
- okulya 'to eat' -lidde
- okumanyi 'to find out, realise' -manyi
- okunywa 'to drink' -nywedde
- okuta 'to release' -tadde
- okuteeka 'to put' -tadde
- okutta 'to kill' -sse
- okutwaka 'to take' -tutte
- okutya 'to be afraid' -tidde
- okuva 'to come from' -vudde
- okuwa 'to give' -wadde
- okuyita 'to call' -yise
- okuyita 'to pass' -yise
Tense and mood
Tense–aspect–mood in Luganda is explicitly marked on the verb, as it is in most other Bantu languages.Present tense
The present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
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).
| 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 is just the subject prefix 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 in Luganda is sometimes slightly weaker in its past meaning than in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. It's often used with intransitive verb
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
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 tenses
The near past is formed by inserting the prefix -a- before the modified form of the stem. This prefix, 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 prefix 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. This is the tense that's used in novel
Novel
A novel is a book of 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 storytelling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
.
Future tenses
The near future is used when describing things that are going to happen within the next 18 hours. It's formed with the prefix 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 person
Grammatical person
Grammatical 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 prefix 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 prefix 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 prefix 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 prefix becomes a d after the n- of the first person
Grammatical person
Grammatical 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
The conditional mood
Conditional mood
In linguistics, the conditional mood is the inflectional form of the verb used in the independent clause of a conditional sentence to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances...
is formed with the prefix 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 mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
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 verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
lema ('to fail') plus the infinitive
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...
:
- 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 prefix 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
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
s, especially verbs of physical attitude (see Present Perfect above), the kya- prefix 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 prefix 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 affirmative
Affirmative
Affirmative 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 prefix 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 vowel
Vowel
In 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 prefix si- placed immediately after the object prefixes (or after the subject prefix if no object prefixes 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 periphrasticallyPeriphrasis
In linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...
, with the use of auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
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 verbFinite 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 on 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 reflexive
Reflexive verb
In 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 infinitive
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...
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 applied
Applicative voice
The applicative voice is a grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the object 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...
, or prepositional, modification, allows the verb to take an extra object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
and gives it the meaning 'to do for or with (someone or something). It's formed with the suffix ir- inserted before the final -a of the verb:
Adding the applied suffix twice gives the 'augmentative applied' modification, which has an alternative applied sense, usually further removed from the original sense than the simple applied modification:
The causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
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
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
transitive
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
:
Appling two causative modifications results in the 'second causative':
The neuter modification, also known as the stative
Stative verb
A stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...
, is similar to the '-able' suffix in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, 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 suffix -ik/-ek before the verb'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
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
and leaves it intransitive, or reverses the meaning of a transitive verb
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
and makes it intransitive, similar to English's
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
'un-' prefix. It's formed with the prefix uk- inserted before the verb'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
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
and makes it transitive
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
, or reverses the meaning of a transitive verb and leaves it transitive. It's formed with the suffix ul-:
- okukola 'to do' → okukolula 'to undo'
- okusimba 'to plant' → okusimbula 'to uproot'
- okukyala 'to pay a visit' → okukyalula 'to send off'
Two conversive suffixes 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 progressive
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
is formed with the suffix -nga. It's used with finite verb
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 on 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 clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. 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 numberCardinal number
In 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 adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s that agree
Agreement (linguistics)
In 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 to which it relates....
with the noun
Noun
In 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 .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
they qualify
Grammatical modifier
In 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 sentence....
. 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 '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 (omu, 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' (Classes II and V)
- mukaaga 'six' (Class II)
- musanvu 'seven'
- munaana 'eight'
- mwenda 'nine'
- kkumi 'ten'; plural amakumi (Class V)
- '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' (Class III)
- omukazi omu 'one woman' (Class I)
- emmotoka ataano 'five cars'
- abakazi bataano 'five women'
but
- emmotoka kikumi 'a hundred cars'
- abakazi kikumi 'a hundred women'
and
- abasajja kkumi n'omu 'eleven men' (Class I)
- ente kkumi n'emu 'eleven cattle' (Class III)
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', bukumi 'tens of thousands'—but not nkumi '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
Frank Kigozi Picareader text to speech language software.