Lesson 1
Hana is a Japanese girl living in Kibra, Nairobi.
Hana meets Ibrahim, a Nubi guy, on her way to the city center.
Ibrahim: Assalam aleikum.
/assalam aléikum/.
Peace be upon you.
Hana: Waaleikum salam. Ita kefen?
/waaleikum salâm/. /íta kefén/?
Peace be upon you, too. How are you?
Ibrahim: Alhamdu lillai, ana kwes. U ita? Taarfu Kinubi?
/alhámdu lillái ána kwês/. /u íta/? /tá-árfu kinúbi/?
Thanks to the God, I am fine. And you? You know Nubi language?
Hana: Ana gishukur. Anarfu rutan Nubi shia.
/ána gí-shúkur/. /án-árfu rutan núbi shía/.
I’m grateful. I know Nubi language a little.
Ibrahim: Kabar safari?
/kabar safári/?
How was your trip?
Hana: Seme zaid. Tagelu?
/séme záid/. /tá-gélu/?
Fine. How was your morning?
Ibrahim: Seme. Sade tagiso sunu?
/séme/. /sâdé tá-gí-só sunú/?
Fine. Now, what are you doing?
Hana: Angistena matatu. Anaju rua fi taun.
/án-gí-sténa matátu/. /án-áju rúa fi táun/.
I’m waiting for a minibus. I want to go to the city center.
Ibrahim: Ahaa, ana kaman.
/aháa, ána kamân/.
Okay, me, too.
❋Vocabulary
íta, tá- you
kefén, kefín how
ána, án- I, me
kwês good, well
u, wa and
árfu know
gí- be doing
shúkur thank
shía, swía a little
kábar news
safári travel
séme okay
záid very (much)
gélu spend morning
sâdé now
sô, só do
sténa wait for
matátu minibus
áju want
rúa go
fi to, in, at
táun town
kamân also
❋Grammatical notes
1. Greetings
As the Nubi proverb goes, salâm kabla kalâm (greeting before speech) is the principle in Nubi conversation. Since most Nubi people are Muslims, it is common to use the Arabic-Islamic greeting (As)salam aléikum ‘Peace be upon you’ (shortened as salékum) and its reply Waaleikum salâm ‘Peace be upon you, too’.
There is not a fixed expression of inquiry, and the following greetings are some examples of the equivalents of “How are you”.
Kábar táki? “What is your news?”
Kabar yôm? “What is the news of the day?”
Kabar bê? “What is the news of the house?”
Kabar Japân? “What is the news of Japan?”
Kabar mín umbári? “What is the news since yesterday?”
Tá-sába (kefín)? “(How) did you spend the night?”
Tá-gélu (kefín)? “(How) did you spend the morning?”
The most typical answer to all these expressions is Séme “Fine” or Kwês “Well”, and politely accompanied by (Al)hámdu lillai “thanks to the God”.
2. Personal pronouns as subjects
Nubi has six personal pronouns, without distinguishing “he” and “she”. The independent forms are used both as a subject and an object (of a verb or a preposition), but there are shortened subject forms.
In this textbook, the subject forms are written together with the following word, which can be a verb, an adverb, a noun, or something else.
independent form vs. subject form
ána vs. án- 'I'
íta vs. tá- 'you' (singular)
úo vs. ó- 'he, she, (it)'
ína vs. ná- 'we'
ítakum vs. tákum- 'you' (plural)
úmon vs. món- 'they'
3. Imperfective marker gí-, stative verbs, and copula (verb ‘to be’)
Nubi verbs are classified into two categories, active verbs and stative verbs, which affect the way of tense-aspect markings. The bare stative verbs (árfu ‘know’ and áju ‘want’) in a sentence convey the meaning of “present tense” (‘I know’, ‘I want’) in English. On the other hand, active verbs (shúkur ‘thank’ and sténa ‘wait for’) is prefixed by imperfective marker gí- to denote the “present tense” (‘I thank’) and “(present) progressive” (‘I am waiting for’). The imperfective marker can be gú- before /w/ (gú-wála ‘be lighting’) or a syllable including /u/ (gú-úza ‘be selling’, gú-rúa ‘be going’) or gá- before /a/ (gá-ágara ‘be reading’). Thus, one can say:
ána gí-rúa ‘I am going’ as ána gú-rúa or án-gú-rúa
úmon gí-ágara ‘they study’ as úmon gá-ágara or món-gá-ágara
Nubi does not have the present form of copula (verb ‘to be’, namely ‘is’, ‘am’ and ‘are’) and two juxtaposed noun phrases means “X is Y”.
4. Language names
Language names are denoted by rutan (from rutân ‘language’) such as rutan Núbi ‘Nubi language’, rutan Swahíli ‘Swahili language’, and rutan Íngilish ‘English language’. In addition, Swahili terms with the prefix ki- (such as Kinúbi ‘Nubi’, Kiswahíli ‘Swahili’, and Kizúngu ‘English’) are also used.