Pronouns 1

We've looked a lot at the subject concords in Giriama, saying they were similar to English pronouns. Now we finally get to real Giriama pronouns.

Mimi na, Me and

We have already seen mimi, meaning I, me:

Mimi na muche wangu funarya.

Me and my wife are eating.

Iye ni, He/She is

In the previous post, we saw that Ni mwalimu was ambiguous without tone: it could either mean I am a teacher or He/She is a teacher.

Thankfully, you can also use pronouns to make it clear what you mean. Mimi ni mwalimu means I am a teacher, and Iye ni mwalimu means He/she is a teacher.

Here are all the pronouns:

mìmì	nì	mwàlímù	‘I am a teacher.’
ùwè	ù	mwàlìmù	‘You(sg) are a teacher.’
ìyè	nì	mwálìmù	‘He/she is a teacher.’
sìswì	fù	àlìmù	‘We(excl) are teachers.’
sìswì	hù	àlìmù	‘We(incl) are teachers.’
nìnwì	mù	àlìmù	‘You(pl) are teachers.’
àò	nì	àlìmù	‘They are teachers.’

Note that there is only 1 word for we, which is siswi.

Exercises

Translate to English

Read the following sentences aloud, then translate them into English:

Mimi ni baharini.
Ninwi mu duk'ani.
Siswi fu sikulini.
Iye a mundani.
Ao ma muhoni.

Translate to Giriama:

Translate the following into Giriama:

You are at the river.
They are at work.
We are at church.
She is at the farm.
I am at the house.
He's at school.

Complete the following sentences

Musena wangu anenda hiko?
Iye anenda Malindi.

Wana wangu a hiko?
______ __ sikuleni.
Muche wangu anahendza kuenda hiko?
______ __nahendza kuenda baharini.