Ya sami rauni.

He sustained an injury.

Breakdown of Ya sami rauni.

• samu: to get
• ya: he/it
• rauni: the injury; wound

Questions & Answers about Ya sami rauni.

What does ya mean here?

Ya is the 3rd person singular masculine subject form used in a completed/completive clause. In practical terms, here it means he in a sentence like he got injured or he has sustained an injury.

So in Ya sami rauni:

• ya = he (masculine singular, completed action)

If the subject were feminine, you would say Ta sami rauni = She was injured / She sustained an injury.

Why is it ya, not shi?

Because ya is the normal subject marker used in this kind of sentence.

Shi is usually used as:

• an independent/emphatic pronoun: he
• or an object pronoun: him

So:

• Ya sami rauni = normal statement: He got injured
• Shi ya sami rauni = more emphatic: He is the one who got injured

That difference is very common in Hausa: the ordinary subject form inside the sentence is often not the same as the independent pronoun you might learn in a vocabulary list.

What does sami mean?