Luganda Grammar 2017

1 A Luganda Grammar Leah Sternefeld and Sseguya Francis Nickshere 2015 2 Contents 1. Preface ............................................................................................................................................ 3 2. Why learn Luganda ......................................................................................................................... 3 3. General Introduction to Luganda ................................................................................................... 5 4. The Verb .......................................................................................................................................... 6 5. The Noun ....................................................................................................................................... 13 6. The Possessive .............................................................................................................................. 23 7. Adjectives ...................................................................................................................................... 29 8. Intensification and Comparison of Adjectives/Adverbs .............................................................. 33 9. Adverbs ......................................................................................................................................... 38 10. Objects ...................................................................................................................................... 39 11. Questions .................................................................................................................................. 41 12. Auxiliary Verbs .......................................................................................................................... 46 13. Conjunctions ............................................................................................................................. 48 14. The very near Past .................................................................................................................... 49 15. The near Past ............................................................................................................................ 51 16. The distant Past ........................................................................................................................ 52 17. The near Future ......................................................................................................................... 53 18. The far Future ........................................................................................................................... 53 19. The Subjunctive......................................................................................................................... 54 20. If and the Conditional ............................................................................................................... 55 21. The Imperative .......................................................................................................................... 56 22. The Passive, the Reflexive, Reciprocal and the Reversive form .............................................. 58 23. Demonstrative Pronouns.......................................................................................................... 61 24. Prepositions .............................................................................................................................. 62 25. The Prepositional ...................................................................................................................... 63 26. The Causative ............................................................................................................................ 65 27. Still ............................................................................................................................................. 67 28. Yet ............................................................................................................................................. 68 29. ‘Is there’ .................................................................................................................................... 69 30. Counting .................................................................................................................................... 69 3 1. Preface Before coming to a country you have never been to before it is a widespread habit to google this particular country. When your destination is called Uganda, a not so well-known country, you are indeed very likely to do so. Wikipedia, a widely trusted source, will now tell you that both English and Swahili are the official languages of Uganda. Lucky you, you know English and Swahili lessons are available all over the world and on the web. By the time you actually get to the streets of Kampala you will soon notice: The people of the Buganda Kingdom do not speak Swahili. They do not even speak English when conversing with each other. Most people in this region speak Luganda. If you really want …