Tsohon ya mutu.

Because Hausa normally uses an agreeing subject marker before the verb, even when the subject noun is already stated.

So the pattern here is:

• Tsohon = the old man / the old one
• ya = masculine singular subject marker in the completive
• mutu = die

A very literal way to think of it is:

• The old man, he died

That sounds redundant in English, but it is normal Hausa structure.

If you left out ya and said Tsohon mutu, that would not be the normal way to make this sentence.

ya tells you several things at once:

• the subject is third person
• the subject is singular
• the subject is masculine
• the action is in the completive form

So in this sentence, ya is roughly the part that gives the sense of he plus a completed event.

That is why ya mutu can be translated as:

• he died
• he has died

depending on context.

tsoho is the basic dictionary form meaning old or old man.

tsohon is a linked form, with the masculine ending -n. Hausa often uses this form when the word is connected to a noun, or when a noun is understood but not actually spoken.

So Tsohon here is functioning like:

• the old one
• the old man

with the understood person already clear from context.

The important point is that -n is not random: it is part of the grammatical form of the word.

Yes, you can think of there being an understood noun.

A learner can imagine something like:

• tsohon mutum = old man

But Hausa does not always need to say the noun if it is obvious. So Tsohon by itself can mean the old one or the old man.

English sometimes needs an extra noun where Hausa does not.

mutu is an intransitive verb meaning to die.

That means it does not take a direct object.

So:

• ya mutu = he died

but not he died him or anything similar.

This is useful because English speakers sometimes confuse die and kill. In Hausa, if you want kill, you use a different verb, such as kashe.

So:

• ya mutu = he died
• ya kashe shi = he killed him

Most basically, it means a completed event: died.

But in real translation, it can also come out as:

• has died
• sometimes, by implication, is dead

That is because the Hausa completive is more about the action being complete than about one exact English tense.

So the best English version depends on context.

Hausa does not use a separate word exactly like English the in this sentence.

English requires an article in a phrase like the old man, but Hausa often leaves definiteness to:

• context
• the structure of the noun phrase
• what the speaker and listener already know

So when English says the old man, Hausa can simply say Tsohon in the right context.

A rough guide is:

• Tsohon ≈ tso-hon
• ya ≈ yah
• mutu ≈ moo-too

A few helpful notes:

• ts in Tsohon is pronounced together, not as two completely separate sounds.
• h is pronounced.
• The u in mutu is like the vowel in food, but shorter.

Also, Hausa has tone, but tone is usually not written in normal spelling, so learners do not see it marked here.