Finding words

One way to list words in a dictionary of a Bantu language like Logoori is like an English dictionary: write words as officially spelled, ordered alphabetically from A to Z. This is usually unsatisfactory in Bantu languages and especially in Logoori. First, there is no single authoritative spelling system and there is a high degree of variation in how people write words. Second, almost all words in Bantu languages are built from at least a prefix and a root, the core meaning being carried by the root. For example, ameeyo ‘yard broom’, icheeyo ‘house broom’ and kweeya ‘to sweep’ are related words, but using strict whole-word alphabetization, you would not find these words together. Some nouns allow different prefixes, for example the root -duukuula ‘chicken flea’ may be realized as ikiduukuula, ividuukuula or uvuduukuula (mainly depending on whether you think in terms of a single flea, a number of individual fleas, or a mass of fleas) – when you want the word meaning 'chicken flea' it should not matter whether it is singular, plural or mass. Third, the rules of pronunciation which might lead one to guess how a word might be spelled are highly variable across Logoori speakers. The word ‘knife’ may be pronounced as umuvano, um’vano, um’bano, muvano, m’vano, m’bano, as well as umuvanu, um’banu, muvanu and so on. It is therefore most practical to organize a Logoori dictionary according to the root, which minimizes (but does not totally eliminate) the effect of pronunciation variation. 

Obviously, that means a user has to be able to figure out what the root is – explaining how to identify the root is the point of this section. The strategy is very simple: you have to know whether the word is a noun, adjective, or verb, then you follow a system of rules about chopping off the prefix, which gives you most of the information that you need to look up a word. 

Verbs 

To look up a verb, you start with the infinitive of the verb – kodeeka ‘to cook’, kovega ‘to shave’, kokoonya ‘to help’, kulima ‘to plow’, kugavula ‘to divide’, kusya ‘to grind’, kwiiva ‘to steal’, kweeya ‘to sweep’, kwoonoonya ‘to mess up’. The infinitive prefix is ku, and its pronunciation changes according to two rules. When the next vowel is e or o, it is pronounced ko. When the prefix comes immediately before a vowel (a, e, o, i, u), it is pronounced as kw and the following vowel is long (kweeya from ku+eya, kwoonoonya from ku+onoonya). There are some complications in the rules for actual pronunciation, for example the change of u to o does not usually happen in kuchoola ‘to draw’, kunyweeka ‘to beat’, because some consonants prevent the rule from applying. Also, in some dialects, you say kudeeka, not kodeeka. To fully understand those rules of pronunciation, you need to read the grammar. For the purpose of learning how to use the dictionary, just chop off the infinitive prefix ku, ko, kw. 

The resulting roots deeka, vega, koonya, lima, gavula, sya are the same as the imperative (used to give an order). When a verb root begins with a vowel, the root is not the same as the imperative: the imperative of kwaara ‘to spread’ is yara but the root is ara, the imperative of kwoonoonya is yonyoonya but the root is onoonya, and kweeya has the root eya but the imperative is yeya. The reason for this break in the pattern is that the imperative also involves a rule of pronunciation which inserts y at the beginning of the stem, under certain conditions – this is explained in the grammar. But sometimes the y at the beginning of the imperative is part of the root, for example yava ‘dig!’, kuyava ‘to dig’; yooya ‘scoop!’, koyooya ‘to scoop’. Relying on the imperative will not work to tell you whether a verb that starts with y in the imperative inserts y by rule, or is y part of the root? This is why you have to start with the infinitive, and chop off the prefix.

Adjectives 

Most adjectives have a prefix which changes depending on the noun that it modifies, for example umuundu mulahi ‘good person’, avaandu valahi ‘good people’, imivano milahi ‘good knives’, ilihoondo lilahi ‘good pumpkin’, amahoondo malahi ‘good pumpkins’, all with the same adjective root -lahi meaning ‘good’. The procedure for identifying the root of an adjective is basically the same as with verbs. Compare the part that changes when you go from singular to plural, or when you change the basic noun (from ‘person’ to ‘pumpkin’ etc.). The part that ‘copies’ the prefix of the noun is the part that you chop off, therefore we see that the root ‘good’ is lahi. 

Again, rules of pronunciation change how an adjective root appears, for example the root ‘good’ begins with l (in conventional spelling) most of the time but in eng’oombe indahi ‘good cow’, l changes to d after n. The key to looking up the root ‘raw’ in zinguza zimbisi ‘raw vegetable’ is to consider the same adjective modifying a different kind of noun, like ichaamegele kivisi ‘raw mushroom’ or livuyu livisi ‘raw egg’. 

The basic prefixes for nouns and adjectives, and their traditional numbering, are seen in the following table, showing the prefixes on nouns. 

From this you should be able to correctly predict the form of the adjective -lahi ‘good’ as a modifier of umuyaayi, or amabwooni, or uvukiindu, but it may help to know that the vowel at the beginning of the noun in most of these examples is specific to nouns. The corresponding forms of the adjective lahi, said by themselves, are: 

 Rules of pronunciation complicate this equation a little, for example there is a change of l to d or v to b after n or m. There is also a more common pronunciation of the class 5 and class 11 prefixes, where usually one says ilibwooni llahi and ulufuungu llahi rather than ilibwooni lilahi and ulufuungu lulahi. Some adjective roots begin with a vowel, for example -ele ‘empty’. Notice how the prefixes of adjectives change when they come before this root. 

The general rule of pronunciation is that i and u change to y and w before a vowel. Then, ky is changed to ch. Another rule of pronunciation explains the z in nzele. Even if you don’t understand all of these rules, you can probably figure out from the forms enzele, lweele that the root is something like ele, so that is where you start your search. 

Nouns 

The main difference between nouns and adjectives in terms of identifying the root is that nouns have their own class prefix, which usually limits variation to singular versus plural. You can identify the root nu ‘pestle, mortar’ from ikinu by looking at the plural ivinu, and you might also predict this from the fact that iki- is a noun class prefix as you see in the table above. One problem is that a few nouns can be ambiguous in appearance. The word imiisheni ‘mission’ is in class 9-10, so the plural is izimiisheni, but it resembles a noun in class 4 imiima ‘tradition’. We can’t even look at the singular of imiima to tell what prefix this has, because there is no singular. But we can tell from the form of an adjective that follows – imiima milahi ‘good tradition’ vs. imiisheni indahi ‘good mission’ – that these nouns are in different classes. The agreement on the adjective tells us that imiisheni is in class 9, and imiima is in class 4. There is another facts that tells you this, which may or may not be obvious, depending on which dialect you speak. One of the rules of pronunciation that is widely applied, especially in northern areas, is that the initial vowel in umuyaayi, ayayaayi, ilibwooni, amabwooni and so on is often left off – therefore muyaayi, yayaayi, libwooni, mabwooni . But it is hardly ever left off when the noun is in class 9, so the vast majority of people say eng’oombe ‘cow’, ingugi ‘baboon’, ibarasi ‘horse’ and not ng’oombe, ngugi or barasi. While imiima is often pronounced miima, imiisheni is rarely if ever pronounced miisheni. If the initial vowel resists deletion, that tells you that the noun is probably in cl. 9-10 – therefore we conclude that iliinga ‘sickle’ which is not pronounced liinga is in class 9. The plural ziliinga tells you the same thing. 

You use the same prefix-dropping strategy in nouns to figure out what the root is. Remember that most adjectives agree with the noun that they modify, so use an adjective to determine what the noun class of the noun is, then chop off that prefix part of the noun word. This should be fairly simple except for nouns in class 9-10, where the prefixes are usually in- and izin-, but sometimes there is no n in the prefix – examples are ebede ‘ring’, idaaywa ‘rooster’, ihiili ‘clan’, iliinga ‘sickle’, eveembe ‘thatching grass’. For class 9-10, you chop off n or m if there is one as long as it is before another consonant. In the words imaamba ‘crocodile’, imaali ‘wealth’, emeeli ‘ship’, emele ‘mashed cooked bananas’, imili ‘swallow (bird)’, imuuya ‘pocket’, inuuni ‘sesame’, inavodo ‘basket’, inaamba ‘number’, the prefix is just i (or e), and n or m after the vowel is the first letter of the root – he rule says ‘as long as it is before another consonant’, and in these words, m, n are not before another consonant. One little complication is that the three letters ng’ stand for a single consonant (a velar nasal) so in eng’eende ‘jigger’, the root is ng’eende, not g’eende.