Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Where is the Party, More Questions About Drinking

Where is the party?
  • party iri hehe? -- the party | is | where?
  • or, more traditionally: tuzinywera hehe? -- we drink | where?
    • tuzinywera
      • from "kunywe" -- "to drink"
      • tu -- subject-pronoun for "us"
      • zi -- object-pronoun for "drinks" (this same object-pronoun can be used for any inanimate object and animals)
      • ra -- indicates that a specifier will follow, in this case "where"

More questions about drinking:
  • the "ra" in "tunywera" indicates that some kind of specifier will follow, like where, what, how, in what quantity, for how much, etc.
  • tunywera muki? -- we drink | in what? (what are we drinking out of?)
    • mu -- in
    • ki -- what (as in "iki")
  • tunywera angahe? -- we drink (for) | how much? (how much will it cost for us to drink?)
    • angahe -- how much or how many (a general word with wide application, whether talking about drinks, eggs, whatever)

2 comments:

  1. Hello- I live in Chicago and am also learning the Kirundi language! Where do you live? How long have you been studying Kirundi? I would love to correspond with you some more by email

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  2. Amahoro
    Nizeye ko ugumye. Continued from above-I didn't leave email or any contact so here it is: -brendan brendan.padraig@gmail.com

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