Lesson: Putting Together Adjectives and “Of” / “From” and “Other/s”

1. Introduction:

For this exercise, we are going to focus on putting a pair of different pieces together from previous lessons. In this particular lesson, we are going to work on combining both adjectives and the terms for “of”/ “from” and “other/s” through composing short phrases in Rukiga.  This would be relevant for both writing and speaking Rukiga for new learners as these are common linguistic constructions used throughout speech.

Before we begin, the learner should review the two former lessons: Common Rukiga Adjectives and “Of” / “From” and “Other/s”. These lessons will form the basis of this exercise.

A few points to remember:

• The noun class should be consistent throughout the phrases we will work on; the noun class is determined by the noun being used.
• The adjective should go after the noun.
• The “Of” / “From” and “Other/s” word should go after the main subject of the phrase.
• The “Other/s” word and adjective are interchangeable in the word order.
• Typically “Of” / “From” word should go after the “Other/s”
• Remember that the adjectives may have contractions based on the noun class.

2. Introduction:

1. Review the aforementioned lessons as well as the aforementioned points to remember.
2. Review the provided examples below.
3. Using the examples as well as the two former lessons noted above, complete the practice sentences through either writing in Rukiga or translating from Rukiga to English.

3. Examples:

1. Abaana barungi abandi

•  Abaana means “children” and is in the “Mu-Ba” noun class. This noun class must be consistent, so “ba-” becomes the prefix for “-rungi”, meaning good/beautiful, as well as the Mu-Ba plural term for others – “abanda”.  Thus, we have the translation in English of “the other good/beautiful children”.

2. Using the noun eduuka(N-N class – singular; meaning “shop”), how would you say “the other old shop of the king/chief?”?

• While if we have the noun already, we need to figure out what both of the other word, the of word, and the adjective are.  So the word for “others” for N-N class singular is “endiijo”. We know from reviewing the aforementioned Adjectives page that the root for “old” is “-kuru” and with the N-N noun class we can put “n” before “-kuru” to get “nkuru”. Additionally, we know that the term for “king/chief” is “(o)mugabe” or (o)mukama. Here we will use “(o)mugabe”. Finally, we know that for (o)mugabe as a Mu-Ba noun class word gives us the  “of” word as “wa”. Thus, we have the following as the complete sentence:
  • Eduuka nkuru endiijo wa omugabe

Let us practice!