POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS
In Swahili the possessive pronouns are treated like adjectives, They take nominal prefixes,as shown below:
-angu,my,mine -etu, our,ours
-ako, your, yours. -enu, your, yours
-ake, his,her,hers. -ao there, theirs
The following are the class prefix:
NOUN CLASS. PREFIX EXAMPLES
M/WA. W.
mtoto wangu,my child watoto wangu ,my children
M/MI. W/Y.
mkono wake,her hand.mikono yake,her hands
KI/VI. CH/VY kitabu chako, your book.vitabu vyako,your books
- Y/Z. nyumba yetu,our house, nyumba zetu, our house
- L/Y. jina langu ,my name.majina yangu ,my names
- W/Z. ufunguo wake,their keys,funguo zao,their keys
- P. pahali pale,your place
- KW. Kusoma kwake,his reading.
The same prefixes are used to express “of”_a: for the class,”of”is denoted by wa for both singular and plural.
e.g. mtoto wa mwalimu,the teacher’s child
watoto wa mwalimu, the teacher’s children
For the class, you have;
kitabu Cha mwalimu, the teacher’s book.
vitabu vya mwalimu, the teacher’s book
Once you know that “of”is _a in Swahili, you can use it with the prefixes given above without any difficulty.
Exercise
Insert the right prefixes
1.wageni wameleta mizigo _ao
2.walikuwa na mizigo-ingi sana na -zito