An understanding of Kiswahili "ngeli" while not necessary to understand the following text, will go along way in helping you.
Wanted to write something on pronouns, which i believe can help you speak a language without sounding stale. These pronouns called "viwakilishi" singular "kiwakilishi" take many forms in Swahili. Some of these forms are :
a) Viwakilishi vionyeshi
Viwakilishi vionyeshi huweza kuashiria kitu kilicho karibu au mbali.
Basically, they are the most simple ones like the equivalent of ' that' and 'this'. In Swahili they also show distance.
"Huyu" - a person near you
"Huyo" - a person who is some distance away from you, not enough to be far away or close enough to be near you
"Yule" - a person far away from you
Yule mtu ni mwerevu kuliko huyu
That person is smarter than this person
They vary in from across different "ngeli" e.g hiki, hicho, kile, hili, hilo, lile
b) Viwakilishi virejeshi
Hujengwa na irabu ya -o ya urejeshi na mzizi amba-
Basically, adding the vowel -o to the word body of "amba".
(Talking about a stove - jiko) Ambalo ni jipya ni hili.
This is the new one.
(Talking about books - vitabu) Ambavyo vilinunuliwa ni hivyo.
Those are the ones that were bought.
c) Viwakilishi viulizi
Hivi vina kazi vya kuuliza swali linaohusu nomino. Vinajengwa kutumia mizizi -pi, -ngapi na gani.
They are used to ask questions about nouns. Constructed by using the adding "ngeli" prefixes to "-pi", "-ngapi". "Gani" does not accept any prefixes.
Yupi ameshinda? Who won?
Wapi wameshinda? Who won?
Upi ulipandwa? Which was grown? (about plants)(Mmea)
Yapi yalipandwa? Which ones were grown? (Mimea)
Kipi kilisomwa? Which one was read?(about books)
Vipi vilisomwa? Which ones were read?
If you have questions, please ask!
If I've made a mistake, dont hesitate to point it out!
