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The Ganda language or Luganda (, , ) is a Bantu language spoken in the
African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes ( sw, Maziwa Makuu; rw, Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in th ...
region. It is one of the major languages in
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
and is spoken by more than 10 million
Baganda The Ganda people, or Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are official ...
and other people principally in central Uganda including the capital
Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...
of Uganda. Typologically, it is an
agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
,
tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
with subject–verb–object word order and nominative–accusative
morphosyntactic alignment In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument ...
. With at least more than 16 million first-language speakers in the Buganda region and 5 million others fluent elsewhere in different regions especially in major urban areas like
Mbale Mbale is a city in the Eastern Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Mbale District and the surrounding sub-region. Location Mbale is approximately , by road, northeast of Kampala, Uganda's capita ...
, Tororo, Jinja,
Gulu Gulu is a city in the Northern Region of Uganda. It is the commercial and administrative centre of Gulu District. The coordinates of the city of Gulu are 2°46'54.0"N 32°17'57.0"E. The distance from Gulu to Kampala, Uganda's capital and larg ...
,
Mbarara Mbarara City is a city in the Western Region of Uganda and the second largest city in Uganda after Kampala. The city is divided into 6 boroughs of Kakoba Division, Kamukuzi Division, Nyamitanga Division, Biharwe Division, Kakiika Division, ...
,
Hoima Hoima is a city in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Hoima District. It is also the location of the palace of the Omukama of Bunyoro. Location Hoima is approximately , by road, nort ...
,
Kasese Kasese is a town north of Lake George in the Western Region of Uganda. It originally grew around the copper mine at Kilembe, while attention later turned to cobalt mining. It is the chief town of Kasese District, and the district headquarters ...
etc. Luganda is Uganda's defacto language of national identity as it's the most widely spoken Ugandan language used mostly in trade in urban areas, the language is also the most unofficial spoken language in Rwanda's capital Kigali. As a second language, it follows
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
and precedes Swahili in Uganda. Luganda is used in some primary schools in Buganda as pupils begin to learn English, the primary
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of Uganda. Until the 1960s, Luganda was also the official language of Uganda till now instruction in primary schools in
Eastern Uganda The Eastern region is one of four regions in the country of Uganda. As of Uganda's 2014 census, the region's population was . Districts , the Eastern Region contained 32 districts A district is a type of administrative division that, in s ...
.


Phonology

A notable feature of Luganda phonology is its
geminate consonant In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''Gemini (constellation), gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonan ...
s and distinctions between
long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
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 Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
; the change in the pitch of a syllable can change the meaning of a word. For example, the word 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 - of - '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. Unlike some other Bantu languages, there is no tendency in Luganda for penultimate vowels to become long; in fact they are very frequently short, as in the city name
Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...
, pronounced , in which the second vowel is short in Luganda.


Vowels

All five vowels have two forms:
long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
and short. The distinction is phonemic but can occur only in certain positions. After two consonants, the latter being a
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
, all vowels are long. The
quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property *Quality (physics), in response theory * Energy quality, used in various science discipl ...
of a vowel is not affected by its length. Long vowels in Luganda are very long, more than twice the length of a short vowel. A vowel before a
prenasalised consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...
, as in ' Buganda' is also lengthened, although it is not as long as a long vowel; laboratory measurements show that the vowel + nasal takes the same length of time to say as a long vowel. Before a
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
, all vowels are short. A segment such as , where a short vowel is followed by a geminate consonant, is very slightly shorter than or .


Consonants

The table below gives the consonant set of Luganda, grouping
voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
and
voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...
consonants together in a cell where appropriate, in that order. Apart from , all these consonants can be
geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
, even at the start of a word: 'two', ' 'cold'. The
approximants Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
and are geminated as and : 'country'; 'cricket'—from the roots - and - respectively, with the singular noun prefix - that doubles the following consonant. Historically, geminated consonants appear to have arisen when a very close between two consonants dropped out; for example - from *- 'run'. Apart from , and , all consonants can also be prenasalised (prefixed with a nasal stop). This consonant will be , , or according to the
place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
of the consonant which follows, and belongs to the same syllable as that consonant. The liquid becomes when
geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
or prenasalised. For example, 'I see' (from the root - with the subject prefix -); 'leaf' (from the root - with the singular noun prefix -, which doubles the following consonant). A consonant cannot be both geminated and prenasalised. When morphological processes require this, the gemination is dropped and the syllable is inserted, which can then be prenasalised. For example, when the prefix - is added to the adjective - 'black' the result is . The
nasals In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
, , and can be
syllabic Syllabic may refer to: *Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words **Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable *Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables *Abugida, writing system ...
at the start of a word: (or ) 'monkey', 'I give', or 'I explain'. Note that this last example can be analysed in two ways, reflecting the fact that there is no distinction between prenasalisation and gemination when applied to nasal stops.


Tone

Luganda is a
tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
, with three tones: high (), low () and falling (). There are, however, no syllables in Luganda with rising tone , since these automatically become . According to one analysis, tones are carried on
morae A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic'') ...
. In Luganda, a short vowel has one mora and a long vowel has two morae. A geminate or prenasalised consonant has one mora. A consonant + semivowel (e.g. or ) also has one mora. A vowel followed by a prenasalised consonant has two morae ''including'' the one belonging to the prenasalised consonant. The initial vowel of words like 'book' is considered to have one mora, even though such vowels are often pronounced long. No syllable can have more than two morae. Falling tones can be heard in syllables which have two morae, e.g. those with a long vowel ( 'to cry'),Dutcher & Paster (2008), p.125. those with a short vowel followed by a geminate consonant ( 'to throb'), those with a vowel followed by a prenasalised consonant ( 'Baganda people'), and those following a consonant plus semivowel ( 'to fall sick'). They can also be heard on final vowels, e.g. 'country'. Words in Luganda commonly belong to one of three patterns (other patterns are less common): (a) toneless, e.g. 'book'; (b) with one high tone, e.g. 'city'; (c) with two high tones, e.g. which link together to make HHH, i.e. or . (At the end of a sentence, the final tone becomes a falling tone, i.e. ámpálâ but in other contexts, e.g. when the word is used as the subject of a sentence, it remains high: 'Kampala is a city'.) Although words like are theoretically toneless, they are generally subject to a tone-raising rule whereby all but the first mora acquire a high tone. Thus 'book' is pronounced and 'school' is pronounced (where the long consonant counts as the first mora). These tones added to toneless words are called 'phrasal tones'. The tone-raising rule also applies to the toneless syllables at the end of words like 'hospital' and 'we are going', provided that there is at least one low-toned mora after the lexical tone. When this happens, the high tones which follow the low tone are slightly lower than the one which precedes it. However, there are certain contexts, such as when a toneless word is used as the subject of a sentence or before a numeral, when this tone-raising rule does not apply: 'Masindi is a city'; 'ten books'. In a sentence, the lexical tones (that is, the high tones of individual words) tend to fall gradually in a series of steps from high to low. For example, in the sentence 'it is the chief city in Uganda', the lexical high tones of the syllables , and stand out and gradually descend in pitch, the toneless syllables in between being lower. This phenomenon is called 'downdrift'. However, there are certain types of phrase, notably those in the form 'noun + of + noun', or 'verb + location', where downdrift does not occur, and instead all the syllables in between the two lexical high tones link together into a 'plateau', in which all the vowels have tones of equal height, for example 'in the south of Uganda' or 'it is in Uganda'. Plateauing also occurs within a word, as in (see above). A plateau cannot be formed between a lexical tone and a phrasal tone; so in the sentence 'it is in Bunyoro' there is downdrift, since the tones of are phrasal. But a phrasal tone can and frequently does form a plateau with a following high tone of either sort. So in 'people in Uganda', there is a plateau from the phrasal tone of to the lexical tone of , and in 'we are going into the street', there is a plateau from the phrasal tone of to the phrasal tone of . Again there are certain exceptions; for example, there is no plateau before the words 'this' or 'all': 'this person', 'all the people'. Prefixes sometimes change the tones in a word. For example, 'they are Baganda' has LHHL, but adding the initial vowel gives 'Baganda people' with LLHLH. (Here, long vowels are transcribed double () rather than with the length mark (), to allow for tones to be written on each mora.) Different verb tenses have different tonal patterns. The tones of verbs are made more complicated by the fact that some verbs have a high tone on the first syllable of the root, while others do not, and also by the fact that the sequence HH generally becomes HL by a rule called
Meeussen's rule Meeussen's rule is a special case of tone reduction in Bantu languages. The tonal alternation it describes is the lowering, in some contexts, of the last tone of a pattern of two adjacent High tones (HH), resulting in the pattern HL. The phenomenon ...
. Thus means 'he reads', but when the toneless prefix 'he/she' is replaced by the high-toned prefix 'they', instead of it becomes 'they read'. The tones of verbs in relative clauses and in negative sentences differ from those in ordinary positive sentences and the addition of an object-marker such as 'him' adds further complications. In addition to lexical tones, phrasal tones, and the tonal patterns of tenses, there are also intonational tones in Luganda, for example, tones of questions. One rather unexpected phenomenon for English speakers is that if a yes-no question ends in a toneless word, instead of a rise, there is a sharp drop in pitch, e.g. 'is this a road?'.


Phonotactics

Syllables 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 A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
, C = single
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
(including nasals and semivowels but excluding geminates), G =
geminate consonant In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''Gemini (constellation), gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonan ...
, N = nasal stop, S =
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
These forms are subject to certain
phonotactic Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
restrictions: * Two vowels may not appear adjacent to one another. When morphological or grammatical rules cause two vowels to meet, the first vowel is
elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
or reduced to a
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
and the second is lengthened if possible. * A vowel following a consonant–semivowel combination (except ) is always long, except at the end of a word. After a vowel can be either long or short. At the end of a word, all vowels are pronounced short.Luganda Basic Course, p.xi. * A vowel followed by a nasal–plosive combination is always long. * A vowel followed by a geminate is always short. This rule takes precedence over all the above rules. * The
velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
and may not appear before the vowel or the semivowel . In this position they become the corresponding postalveolar
affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
and respectively. * The consonants , and can't be
geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
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 In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s and
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s, beginning with either but always ending in a vowel: * (V)XVXV...XV where V =
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
, X =
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
, (V) = optional vowel This is reflected in the
syllabification Syllabification () or syllabication (), also known as hyphenation, is the separation of a word into syllables, whether spoken, written or signed. Overview The written separation into syllables is usually marked by a hyphen when using English or ...
rule that in writing, words are always hyphenated after a vowel (when breaking a word over two lines). For example, 'My car has arrived' would be split into syllables as .


Variant pronunciations

The
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
and may be realised with some
affrication An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
— either as and or as postalveolars and respectively. In speech, word-final
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s are often
elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
in these conditioning environments: * Word-final can be silent after , , or * Word-final can be silent after , , or For example, 'black' may be pronounced or . Similarly 'why' may be pronounced , or . Long vowels before prenasalised
fricative A fricative is a consonant 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 t ...
s (that is, before , , or ) may be nasalised, and the nasal is then often elided. Additionally, when not elided (for example phrase-initially), the usually becomes a
labiodental In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. Labiodental consonants in the IPA The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
in , . For example: * 'I'm dying' is pronounced * 'seven' may be pronounced , , or * 'don't ask me' may be pronounced , or The liquid has two
allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
and , conditioned by the preceding vowel. It is usually realised as a tap or
flap Flap may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film * Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis'' * Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland'' Biology and he ...
after a
front Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music * The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
unrounded vowel In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pro ...
(''i.e.'' after , , or ), and as a
lateral approximant A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larr ...
elsewhere. However, there is considerable variation in this, and using one allophone instead of the other causes no ambiguity. So 'why' may also be pronounced , , ''etc''.


Alternative analysis

Treating the
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
and prenasalised consonants as separate
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s yields the expanded consonant set below: 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 A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
, C =
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
(including geminate and prenasalised consonants), N = nasal stop, S =
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
(''i.e.'' either or ).
Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
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
spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one ...
, which has been standardized since 1947, uses a
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
, augmented with one new letter and a digraph , 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 In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
consonants is always represented explicitly: simple consonants are written single, and 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 written double only if their length cannot be inferred from the context.
Stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
and tones are not represented in the spelling. The following
phonemes In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
are always represented with the same letter or combination of letters: * Short vowels (always spelt , , , , ) * All consonants apart from , and * The
palatals Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characteristi ...
and , when followed by a short vowel (always spelt , ), except when the short vowel is itself followed by a geminate consonant, or when the vowel is The following phonemes can be represented with two letters or combinations of letters, with the alternation predictable from the context: * Long vowels (spelt , , , , where short vowels are impossible; , , , , elsewhere) * The liquid (spelt after or ; elsewhere) The following phonemes can be represented with two letters or combinations of letters, with unpredictable alternation between the two: * The palatals and , when followed by a long vowel, or by a short vowel and a geminate consonant, or by an sound ( or ) (spelt with , , with , , or, before , with , ). It is therefore possible to predict the pronunciation of any word (with the exception of stress and tones) from the spelling. It is 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. Note, however, that some proper names are not spelled as they are pronounced. For example, is pronounced as though written and is pronounced .''Luganda Basic Course'', p.20.


Vowels

The five
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s in Luganda are spelt with the same letters as in many other languages (for example
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
): * * * * * As mentioned above, the distinction between
long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
and short vowels is
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
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: * 'four (''e.g.'' people)' vs 'children' * 'dance' vs 'overcharge' * 'mingle' vs 'walk slowly' * 'do' vs '(to) weed' * 'send' vs '(to) name' In certain contexts,
phonotactic Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
constraints mean that a vowel must be long, and in these cases it is not written double: * A vowel followed by a
prenasalised consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...
* A vowel that comes after a consonant–semivowel combination—apart from which can be thought of as a geminated ''w'', and 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: * 'metal' * 'I go' But * 'court house' * '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 and ) is 'yes'.


Consonants

With the exception of , each
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
sound in Luganda corresponds to a single letter. The 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 approximately as in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
: * (sometimes softened to ) * ''d'' * ("'' and '' are pronounced with the lips slightly pouted")Crabtree, William A. (1902) ''Elements of Luganda Grammar'', p.13. * * * * * * * * ("'' differs from the English 'w' being much softer") * * A few letters have unusual values: * * * * The letters and represent the same sound in Luganda——but the orthography requires after or , and elsewhere: * 'she's waiting' * (or ) 'she's waiting for it' There are also two letters whose pronunciation depends on the following letter: * is pronounced (or ) before or , elsewhere * is pronounced (or ) before or , elsewhere Compare this to the pronunciation of and in many
Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...
s. As in the Romance languages the 'softening letter' (in
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
, in French , in Luganda ) is not itself pronounced, although in Luganda it does have the effect of lengthening the following vowel (see the previous subsection). Finally the sounds and are spelt before another consonant with the same
place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
(in other words, before other
palatals Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characteristi ...
and
velars Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...
respectively) rather than and : * The combinations and are spelt * The combination is spelt (the diaeresis shows that the is a separate letter rather than part of the digraph, and the is spelt before as in the above rule; in practice this combination is very rare) * is spelt before or (but not before another ) * is spelt before or , or before a soft or


Alphabet

The standard Luganda alphabet is composed of twenty-four letters: * 18 consonants: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , * 5 vowels: , , , , * 2 semi-vowels: , Since the last consonant does not appear on standard typewriters or computer keyboards, it is often replaced by the combination ' (including the apostrophe). In some non-standard orthographies, the apostrophe is not used, which can lead to confusion with the letter combination , which is different from . In addition, the letter combination is treated as a unique consonant. When the letters and appear next to each other, they are written as , with the diaeresis mark to distinguish this combination from . Other letters (, , ) are not used in the alphabet, but are often used to write
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
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 usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
words. The full alphabet, including both standard Luganda letters and those used only for loanwords, is as follows: * Aa, * Bb, * Cc, * Dd, * Ee, * Ff, * Gg, * (Hh, ) * Ii, * Jj, * Kk, * Ll, * Mm, * Nn, * (NY Ny ny, or ) * Ŋŋ, * Oo, * Pp, * (Qq ) * Rr, * Ss, * Tt, * Uu, * Vv, * Ww, * (Xx ) * Yy, * Zz,


Grammar

Like most Bantu languages, Luganda's grammar can be said to be ''noun-centric'', as most words in a sentence agree with a noun. Agreement is by
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
and
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
and is indicated with prefixes attached to the start of word stems. The following parts of speech agree with nouns in class and number: *
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
*
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
(for subject and object roles) *
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
* possessive


Noun classes

NB: In the study of Bantu languages the term ''noun class'' is often used to refer to what is called
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
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 In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...
es. Some authorities count
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
and
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
forms as two separate noun classes, but others treat the singular-plural pairs as
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
s. By the former method, there are 17 classes, and 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. Applying the 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. In addition, Luganda has four locative classes, , , , and . The following table shows how the ten traditional classes of Luganda map onto the
Proto-Bantu Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon.Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. ( ...
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: * Class I contains mainly people, although some inanimate nouns can be found in this class: 'man', '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: 'tree' * Class III also contains many different types of concepts but most animals fall into this class: 'dog' * Class IV contains inanimate objects and is the class used for the impersonal 'it': 'book' * Class V contains mainly (but not exclusively) large things and liquids, and can also be used to create augmentatives: 'breast', 'giant' (from 'person') * Class VI contains mainly small things and can be used to create diminutives, adjectival abstract nouns and (in the plural) negative
verbal noun A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the verb ''sack''). ...
s and countries: 'puppy' (from 'dog'), 'laziness' (from 'lazy'), 'inaction, not to do' (from 'to do, act'), 'Britain, England' (from 'British, English person') * Class VII contains many different things including the names of most languages: 'Ganda language', 'English language' (from 'European, white person') * Class VIII is rarely used but can be used to create
pejorative A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
forms: 'mutt' (from 'dog') * Class IX is mainly used for
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
s or affirmative
verbal noun A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the verb ''sack''). ...
s: 'action, to do' (from the
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
'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': 'drop of water' (from 'water'), 'sleep' The class that a noun belongs to can usually be determined by its prefix: * Class I: singular , plural * Class II: singular , plural * Class III: singular , plural * Class IV: singular , plural * Class V: singular , , plural * Class VI: singular , plural * Class VII: singular , plural * Class VIII: singular , plural * Class IX: singular , plural * Class X: There are a few cases where prefixes overlap: the singulars of Classes I and II (both beginning with ); the singular of Class III and plurals of Classes III and VII (all beginning with ); and the plurals of Classes V and IX (both ). 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 (Class I) 'person' and (Class II) 'seat' in the sentences 'The person is here' and 'The seat is here' because the verb prefixes (Class I) and (Class II) are different, even if the noun prefixes are the same. The same is true with the singular and plural of Class III: 'The dog is eating' vs '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 somewhat differently from the other classes. The singular noun prefix, , is often reduced to with an accompanying doubling of the stem's initial consonant. This happens when the stem begins with a single plosive, or a single nasal stop followed by a long vowel, a nasal stop and then a plosive (called a ''nasalised stem''). For example: * 'egg'; plural (from stem ) * 'country'; plural (from nasalised stem —the becomes when doubled) * 'cricket'; plural (from nasalised stem —the becomes when doubled) Other stems use the full prefix: * 'name'; plural (from stem ) * 'eye'; plural (from stem ) * 'battery'; plural (from stem ) There are also some nouns that have no prefix. Their genders must simply be learnt by rote: * Class I: 'gentleman, sir', 'madam', 'god', 'king', (or ') 'tea', 'coffee' * Class III: 'cat', '
gomesi A gomesi or busuuti is a colorful floor-length dress. It is the most commonly used costume for women in Buganda and Busoga. Traditional male attire is the kanzu. Origins The best scholarship traces the origins of the Gomesi to 1905. The dres ...
(traditional East African women's formal dress)'
Adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s,
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
s, certain
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
s, the possessive and a few special forms of conjunctions are
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
to agree with nouns in Luganda.


Nouns

Nouns are inflected for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
and state. Number is indicated by replacing the singular prefix with the plural prefix. For example, 'man', 'men'; 'comb', '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: * 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')


Pronouns

Luganda has a closed set of pronouns.


Personal Pronouns

Luganda can have self-standing/independent personal pronouns and pronouns that are prefixed to the verb stem.


= Self-Standing Pronouns

= These include , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . * 'I,me' * 'you' * 'he/she,him/her' * 'we,us' * 'you' * 'they,them' Note that the sex/gender of referents is not distinguished so one has to be very careful how one translates Luganda pronouns into languages like English. For instance ''Ye musawo'' can be translated as "She is a doctor" or as "He is a doctor". If care is not taken especially when performing machine translation, this can lead to Artificial Intelligence (AI) bias.


Adjectives

As in other Niger–Congo languages (as well as most
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
and
Afro-Asiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
),
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s must agree in
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
and
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
with the
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
they qualify. For example: * 'beautiful girl' (Class I,
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
) * 'beautiful girls' (Class I,
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
) * 'beautiful tree' (Class II, singular) * 'beautiful trees' (Class II, plural) * 'beautiful/good car(s)' (Class V, singular/plural) In these examples the adjective changes its prefix according to the gender (Class I or II) and number (singular or plural) of the noun it is qualifying (compare
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
, , , ). In some cases the prefix causes the initial of the stem to change to or . 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).


Adverbs

True
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
s in the grammatical sense are far rarer in Luganda than in, say,
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, being mostly translated by other parts of speech—for example
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s or
particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
. When the adverb is qualifying a
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
, it is usually translated by an adjective, which then agrees with the subject of the verb. For example: * 'She slanders me badly' * 'They slander me badly' Here, 'badly' is translated with the adjective 'bad, ugly', which is declined to agree with the subject. Other concepts can be translated by invariant
particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
. for example the intensifying
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
is attached to an adjective or verb to mean 'very', 'a lot'. For example: '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 Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
and
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
but also in
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
), but which are
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
differently. The first group is conjugated in the same way as
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
s and contains only a few words: 'how', 'like this', 'like that': * 'I speak like this' * 'Muslims pray like this' * 'The monkey eats like this' * 'Monkeys eat like this' The adverb '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 include 'all' (or, with the singular, 'any'), 'only', , 'both' and 'all three': * 'I work alone' * 'Only I work' * 'Only you work' * 'Only I will buy the car' * 'I will only buy the car' Note how, in the last two examples, the adverb agrees with whichever antecedent it is qualifying — either the implicit 'I' or the explicit 'the car'. Note also, in the first two examples, how the placement of before or after the verb makes the difference between 'only' (when the adverb qualifies and agrees with the subject—the implicit 'I') and 'alone' (when it qualifies the verb 'I work' but agrees with the subject).


Possessive

The possessive in Luganda is indicated with a different
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
for each singular and plural
noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...
(according to the possessed noun). An alternative way of thinking about the Luganda possessive is as a single word whose initial
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
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 , plural (Class I) * Singular , plural (Class II) * Singular , plural (Class III) * Singular , plural (Class IV) * Singular , plural (Class V) * Singular , plural (Class VI) * Singular , plural (Class VII) * Singular , plural (Class VIII) * Singular , plural (Class IX) * (Class X) If the possessor is a
personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
, the separate possessive form is not used. Instead, the following personal possessives are used: * 'my', 'your (singular possessor)', 'his, her'; 'our', 'your (plural possessor)', 'their' (Class I, singular possessed noun) * 'my', 'your (singular possessor)', 'his, her'; 'our', 'your (plural possessor)', 'their' (Class I, plural possessed noun) * 'my', 'your (singular possessor)', 'his, her'; 'our', 'your (plural possessor)', 'their' (Class II, singular possessed noun) * 'my', 'your (singular possessor)', 'his, her'; 'our', 'your (plural possessor)' 'their' (Class II, plural possessed noun) * 'my', 'your', ''etc.'' (Class III, singular possessed noun) * ''Etc.'' There are also a few
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s that take special forms when used with a possessive: * 'my father', 'your (singular) father', 'his/her father'


Verbs


Subjects

As in other Bantu languages, every
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
must also agree with its subject in gender and number (as opposed to number only as in Indo-European languages). For example: * 'the man is drinking' (Class I, singular) * 'the men are drinking' (Class I, plural) * 'the goat is drinking' (Class III, singular) * 'the goats are drinking' (Class III, plural) * 'the baby/infant is drinking' (Class VI, singular) * 'the babies/infants are drinking' (Class VI, plural) Here, the verb changes its prefix according to the gender and number of its subject. Note, in the third and fourth examples, how the verb agrees with the
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
of the noun even when the noun doesn't explicitly reflect the number distinction. The subject prefixes for the
personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s are: * First person: singular 'I', plural 'we' * Second person: singular 'you (singular)', 'you (plural)' * Third person: singular 'he, she', 'they (Class I)' For
impersonal pronoun ''One'' is an English language, gender-neutral, indefinite pronoun that means, roughly, "a person". For purposes of verb agreement it is a third-person singular pronoun, though it sometimes appears with first- or second-person reference. It is ...
s the subject prefixes are: * Class I: singular , plural (''i.e.'' the third person prefixes shown directly above) * Class II: singular , plural * Class III: singular , plural * Class IV: singular , plural * Class V: singular , plural * Class VI: singular , plural * Class VII: singular , plural * Class VIII: singular , plural * Class IX: singular , plural * Class X:


Objects

When the verb governs one or more objects, there is also an agreement between the object prefixes and the gender and number of their antecedents: * 'I drink it (''e.g.'' coffee)' ( 'coffee', Class I singular) * 'I drink it (''e.g.'' water)' ( 'water', Class IX plural) As with the subject prefix, the
third person Third person, or third-person, may refer to: * Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'') ** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person * Third-person narrative, a perspective in p ...
prefixes also agree with their antecedents in
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
. The personal object prefixes are: * First person: singular 'me', plural 'us' * Second person: singular 'you (singular)', 'you (plural)' * Third person: singular 'him, her', 'them (Class I)' For the impersonal
third person Third person, or third-person, may refer to: * Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'') ** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person * Third-person narrative, a perspective in p ...
the object prefixes are: * Class I: singular , plural (''i.e.'' the third person prefixes shown directly above) * Class II: singular , plural * Class III: singular , plural * Class IV: singular , plural * Class V: singular , plural * Class VI: singular , plural * Class VII: singular , plural * Class VIII: singular , plural * Class IX: singular , plural * Class X: 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 in the noun prefix is replaced by a in the object prefix, the only differences are in Classes I and III. The
direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
prefix is usually inserted directly after the subject prefix: * 'I have eaten it' ( subject 'I' + object 'it' + verb 'ate') The
indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
prefix comes after the direct object: * 'I have given it to him' ( subject 'I' + object 'it' + object '(to) him' + verb 'gave')


Negative

The negative is usually formed by prefixing or to the subject prefix, or, in the case of the first person singular, replacing the prefix with . This results in the following set of personal subject prefixes: * First person: singular 'I', plural 'we' * Second person: singular 'you (singular)', 'you (plural)' * Third person: singular 'he, she', 'they (Class I)' The negative impersonal subject prefixes are: * Class I: singular , plural (''i.e.'' the third person prefixes shown directly above) * Class II: singular , plural * Class III: singular , plural * Class IV: singular , plural * Class V: singular , plural * Class VI: singular , plural * Class VII: singular , plural * Class VIII: singular , plural * Class IX: singular , plural * Class X: When used with object relatives or the narrative tense (see below), the negative is formed with the prefix , which is inserted after the subject and object affixes: * 'The person whom I saw' * 'The person whom I didn't see'


Modified stems

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 suffixes: * * * * * * * * * * * 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: * 'to be' * 'to die' * 'to deny, forbid' * 'to end' (intransitive) * 'to remove' or * 'to cook' (intransitive) * 'to fall' * 'to come' * 'to go down, come down' * 'to catch' * 'to delay' * 'to eat' * 'to find out, realise' * 'to drink' * 'to release' * 'to put' * 'to kill' * 'to take' * 'to be afraid' * 'to come from' * 'to give' * 'to call' * 'to pass'


Tense and mood

Tense–aspect–mood Tense–aspect–mood (commonly abbreviated ) or tense–modality–aspect (abbreviated as ) is a group of grammatical categories that are important to understanding spoken or written content, and which are marked in different ways by different la ...
in Luganda is explicitly marked on the verb, as it is in most other Bantu languages.


=Present tense

= The
present tense The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...
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: * 'I have done' * 'you have done' * 'he, she has done' * 'we have done' * 'you (plural) have done' * 'they (class I) have done' The present perfect in Luganda is sometimes slightly weaker in its past meaning than in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
. It is often used with
intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
s with the sense of being in the state of having done something. For example, means 'my husband has arrived' (using the present perfect form of the verb 'to come'; 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 or 'I did' because is a transitive verb. The present perfect is also used to show physical attitude. For example, using the verb 'to sit down': (present tense) means 'I am in the process of sitting myself down'; to say 'I'm sitting down' in the usual sense of 'I'm seated' in standard English, a
Muganda The Ganda people, or Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are officiall ...
would use the present perfect: (as in certain non-standard varieties of British English).


=Past tenses

= The near past is formed by inserting the prefix before the modified form of the stem. This prefix, being a vowel, has the effect of changing the form of the subject prefixes: * 'I did' * 'you did' * 'he, she did' * 'we did' * 'you (plural) did' * '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 as the near past, but using the simple form of the stem: * 'I did' * 'you did' * 'he, she did' * 'we did' * 'you (plural) did' * '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 The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...
. This is the tense that's used in novels and storytelling.


=Future tenses

= The near future is used when describing things that are going to happen within the next 18 hours. It is formed with the prefix on the simple form of the stem: * 'I shall do' * 'you will do' * 'he, she will do' * 'we shall do' * 'you (plural) will do' * 'they (class I) will do' * 'they (class III) will do' * 'they (class III) will do' * ... In the second person
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
and the singular of Class III, the prefix becomes and in harmony with the subject prefix. The negative form of this tense is formed by changing the final of the stem to an and using vowel-lengthened negative subject prefixes; no tense prefix is used: * 'I shan't do' * 'you won't do' * 'he, she won't do' * 'we shan't do' * 'you (plural) won't do' * 'they (class I) won't do' * 'it (class II) won't do' * 'they (class II) won't do' * 'he, she, it (class III) won't do' * 'they (class III) won't do' * ... The
far future While the future cannot be predicted with certainty, present understanding in various scientific fields allows for the prediction of some far-future events, if only in the broadest outline. These fields include astrophysics, which studies how ...
is used for events that will take place more than 18 hours in the future. It is formed with the prefix on the simple form of the stem: * 'I shall do' * 'you will do' * 'he, she will do' * 'we shall do' * 'you (plural) will do' * 'they (class I) will do' * ... Note how the of the tense prefix becomes a after the of the first person
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
subject prefix.


=Other

= The
conditional mood The conditional mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
is formed with the prefix and the modified form of the stem: * 'I would do' * 'you would do' * 'he, she would do' * 'we would do' * 'you (plural) would do' * 'they (class I) would do' The subjunctive is formed by changing the final of the stem to an : * 'I may do' * 'you may do' * 'he, she may do' * 'we may do' * 'you may do' * 'they may do' The negative is formed either with the
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...
('to fail') plus the
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
: * 'I may not do' * 'you may not do' * 'he, she may not do' * 'we may not do' * 'you may not do' * 'they may not do' or using the same forms as the negative of the near future: * 'I may not do' * 'you may not do' * 'he, she may not do' * 'we may not do' * 'you may not do' * '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 is formed with the prefix : * 'I'm still doing' * 'you're still doing' * 'he, she is still doing' * 'we're still doing' * 'you're still doing' * 'they're still doing' In the negative it means 'no longer': * 'I'm no longer doing' * 'you're no longer doing' * 'he, she is no longer doing' * 'we're no longer doing' * 'you're no longer doing' * 'they're no longer doing' With
intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
s, especially verbs of physical attitude (see Present Perfect above), the prefix can also be used with the modified verb stem to give a sense of 'still being in a state'. For example, 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 is formed with the prefix : * 'I have so far done' * 'you have so far done' * 'he, she has so far done' * 'we have so far done' * 'you have so far done' * 'they have so far done' This tense is found only in the affirmative. The 'not yet' tense, on the other hand, is found only in the negative. It is used to talk about things that have not happened yet (but which may well happen in the future), and is formed with the prefix : * 'I haven't yet done' * 'you haven't yet done' * 'he, she hasn't yet done' * 'we haven't yet done' * 'you haven't yet done' * 'they haven't yet done' When describing a series of events that happen (or will or did happen) sequentially, the
narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc. ...
form is used for all but the first verb in the sentence. It’s formed by the
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
(or before a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
) followed by the present tense: * 'I went and made a phone call' * '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 placed immediately after the object prefixes (or after the subject prefix if no object prefixes are used): * 'I didn't go and did not make a phone call' * 'I won't go and will not make a phone call' * '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 periphrastically, with the use of
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...
s. Some of Luganda's auxiliary verbs can also be used as main verbs; some are always auxiliaries: * 'to be': used with an optional with another
finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...
to form compound tenses * 'to come': forms a future tense when used with the infinitive of the main verb * or (only used as an auxiliary): appears with another finite verb, usually translated 'and then' or (in the subjunctive) 'so that' * 'to finish': used with the infinitive to denote completed action, or with the stem of the main verb prefixed with to mean 'whether one wants to or not' * (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' * 'to come from': followed by the main verb in the infinitive, means 'just been' * 'to fail': used with the infinitive 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 Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of o ...
is produced by replacing the final with or /: * 'to see' → 'to be seen' The reflexive is created by adding the prefix to the verb stem (equivalent to replacing the prefix of the
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
with ): * 'to kill' → 'to kill oneself' Many verbs are used only in their reflexive form: * 'to sleep' (simple form * is not used) * 'to need' (simple form * is not used) Reduplication is formed by doubling the stem, and generally adds the sense of repetition or intensity: * 'to strike' → 'to batter' The applied, or prepositional, modification, allows the verb to take an extra
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
and gives it the meaning 'to do for or with (someone or something)'. It is formed with the suffix inserted before the final of the verb: * 'to work' → 'to work for (an employer)' * 'to sleep' → '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: * 'to work' → 'to utilise, employ' The causative is formed with various changes applied to the end of the verb, usually involving the final changing to , or . It gives a verb the sense of 'to cause to do', and can also make an
intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
transitive: * 'to see' → 'to show' (more commonly "okulaga", a different verb, is used). * 'to become' → 'to turn (something or someone) into (something else)' Applying two causative modifications results in the 'second causative': * 'to see' → 'to show' → 'to cause to show' The neuter modification, also known as the
stative According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are ...
, is similar to the '-able' suffix in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, except that the result is a verb meaning 'to be ''x''-able' rather than an adjective meaning ''x''-able'. It is formed by inserting the suffix / before the verb's final : * 'to do' → 'to be possible' * 'to eat' → 'to be edible' The intransitive conversive modification reverses the meaning of an
intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
and leaves it intransitive, or reverses the meaning of a
transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transiti ...
and makes it intransitive, similar to English's 'un-' prefix. It is formed with the prefix inserted before the verb's final : * 'to pay a visit' → '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 In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
and makes it transitive, or reverses the meaning of a transitive verb and leaves it transitive. It is formed with the suffix : * 'to do' → 'to undo' * 'to plant' → 'to uproot' * 'to pay a visit' → 'to send off' Two conversive suffixes create the augmentative conversive modification: * 'to deceive' → 'to disabuse, set straight' The
reciprocal Reciprocal may refer to: In mathematics * Multiplicative inverse, in mathematics, the number 1/''x'', which multiplied by ''x'' gives the product 1, also known as a ''reciprocal'' * Reciprocal polynomial, a polynomial obtained from another pol ...
modification is formed with the suffix or (or less commonly ): * 'to see' → 'to see one another' * 'to kill' → 'to kill each other' The progressive is formed with the suffix . It is used with
finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...
s to give the sense of continuousness: * 'I'll look after him' → 'I'll always look after him' * 'don't whinge' → 'never whinge' * 'don't steal' → 'thou shalt not steal' This is not really a modification but a clitic, so it is always applied 'after' any grammatical inflexions.


Combinations of modifications

More than one modification can be made to a single stem: * 'to be undo-able (''i.e.'' reversible)' — conversive neuter: → → * 'to transplant' — conversive applied causative: → → → * 'to look around oneself, be distracted' — reduplicative reciprocal: → → * 'to distract' — reduplicative reciprocal causative: → → → * 'to pretend to sleep' — reflexive augmentative applied causative → → (applied) → (augmentative applied) → 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 is impossible to distinguish between, for example, reflexive causative and causative reflexive.


Numbers

The Luganda system of
cardinal number In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number: the number of elements in the set. T ...
s is quite complicated. The numbers 'one' to 'five' are specialised numerical
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s that agree with the
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
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): * (, , , , ...) 'one' * (, , ...) 'two' * (, , ...) 'three' * (, , ...) 'four' * (, , ...) 'five' Numerical nouns: * 'Six' to 'ten' (Classes II and V) ** 'six' (Class II) ** 'seven' ** 'eight' ** 'nine' ** 'ten'; plural (Class V) * 'Sixty' to 'one hundred' (Classes III and IV) ** 'sixty' (Class III) ** 'seventy' ** 'eighty' (Class IV) ** 'ninety' ** 'one hundred'; plural * 'Six hundred' to 'one thousand' (Class VII) ** 'six hundred' ** 'seven hundred' ** 'eight hundred' ** 'nine hundred' ** 'one thousand'; plural * 'Six thousand' to 'ten thousand' (Class VI) ** 'six thousand' ** 'seven thousand' ** 'eight thousand' ** 'nine thousand' ** (archaic) 'ten thousand'; plural Standard nouns: * 'ten thousand'; plural (Class II) * 'one hundred thousand'; plural (Class VI) * 'one million'; plural (Class VI) * 'one billion' (1,000,000,000); plural (Class VI) * 'one trillion' (1,000,0000,000); plural * 'one quintillion' (1,000,000,000,000,000,000); plural (Class VI) * 'one septillion' (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000); plural (Class VI) Digits are specified from left to right, combined with (following ) and (following any other word). For example: * 12 (10 + 2) * 22 (10 × 2 + 2) * 65 (60 + 5) * 122 (100 + 10 × 2 + 2) * 222 (100 × 2 + 10 × 2 + 2) * 1,222 (1,000 + 100 × 2 + 10 × 2 + 2) * 1,024 (1,000 + 10 × 2 + 4) * 2,222 (1,000 × 2 + 100 × 2 + 10 × 2 + 2) * 2,500 (1,000 × 2 + 100 × 5) * 7,500 (7,000 + 100 × 5) * 7,600 (7,000 + 600) * 9,999 (9,000 + 900 + 90 + 9) * 999,000 * 1,000,000 (1,000,000) * 3,000,000 (1,000,000 × 3) * 10,000,000 (1,000,000 × 10) * 122,000,122 (1,000,000 * (100 + 10 × 2 + 2) + 100 + 10 × 2 + 2) The numerical adjectives agree with the qualified noun: * 'one car' (Class III) * 'one woman' (Class I) * 'five cars' * 'five women' but * 'a hundred cars' * 'a hundred women' and * 'eleven men' (Class I) * 'eleven cattle' (Class III) The forms , , , and 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 ( 'tens', 'hundreds', 'tens of thousands' — but not 'thousands') are usually omitted, as long as this doesn't result in ambiguity. For example: * 40 → * 22 → * 222 → * 1,024 → * 2,222 → * 2,500 → * 7,500 → * 122,000,122 → Note that: * '40 batteries' cannot be shortened to because this means "four batteries", and '40 dogs' cannot be shortened to because is the form of used with , so this actually means 'four dogs'. * '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 .


References


Bibliography

* Ashton, Ethel O., and others (1954) ''A Luganda Grammar'', London: Longmans, Green. * Barlon, W. Kimuli (2009) ''Luganda Language: A connection with Nyanja of Zambia''. pp. 04 * Chesswas, J. D. (1963) ''Essentials of Luganda''. Oxford University Press * Crabtree, W. A. (1902, 1923
''Elements of Luganda Grammar''
The Uganda Bookshop/Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge * Dutcher, Katharine & Mary Paster (2008)
"Contour Tone Distribution in Luganda"
''Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics'', ed. Natasha Abner and Jason Bishop, 123-131. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. * Hubbard, Kathleen (1995) "Toward a theory of phonological and phonetic timing: evidence from Bantu". In Connell, Bruce & Amalia Arvanti (eds), ''Phonology and Phonetic Evidence: Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV'' pp. 168–187. * Hyman, Larry & Francis Katamba (1993) "A new approach to tone in Luganda", in ''Language''. 69. 1. pp. 33–67 * Hyman, Larry & Francis Katamba (2001
"The Word in Luganda"
* Kamoga, F.K. & Stevick, E.W. (1968)
''Luganda Basic Course''
. Foreign Service Institute, Washington. Sound files of this course are available free on the Internet. * Kamoga, F.K & Stevick, E.W. (1968). ''Luganda Pretraining Program''. Foreign Service Institute, Washington. * Murphy, John D. (1972) ''Luganda-English Dictionary''. Catholic University of America Press. * Pilkington, G.L. (1911
''The Hand-Book Of Luganda''
SPCK. * Snoxall, R.A. (1967) ''Luganda-English Dictionary''. Clarendon Press, Oxford


External links

* 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 https://web.archive.org/web/20080122111606/http://www.gandaancestry.com/dictionary/dictionary.php * Free online talking Luganda Dictionary and Crossword Puzzle on the Ganda portal http://www.GandaSpace.com
English–Luganda Dictionary for printing (24 pages, A5)

Luganda–English Dictionary
* The website of a team developing Luganda language capability for computers is at https://archive.today/20011115110455/http://www.kizito.uklinux.net/ *
Paradisec The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel- ...
open acces
collection of recordings
in Luganda {{DEFAULTSORT:Luganda language Buganda Languages of Uganda Nyoro-Ganda languages Subject–verb–object languages