Noma aiki ne.

Farming is work.

Breakdown of Noma aiki ne.

• ne: to be
• aiki: the work
• noma: farming; cultivation

Questions & Answers about Noma aiki ne.

What is noma here: a verb or a noun?

Here it is functioning as a noun, specifically a verbal noun. It refers to the activity of farming, so you can think of it as farming or agriculture rather than to farm.

That is why the sentence is built like X is Y, not like a normal verb sentence.

What does ne do in this sentence?

Ne is the marker used in this kind of Hausa sentence to link one noun to another. In simple learner terms, it does the job that is does in English in a sentence like Farming is work.

So:

• noma = farming
• aiki = work / a job
• ne = the equational/copular marker here

A good beginner way to read the structure is:

noma aiki ne = farming is work

Why is ne at the end instead of between the two words?

That is just how this common Hausa pattern works.

In English, you say:

• Farming is work

In Hausa, the equivalent pattern is more like:

• Farming work is

So the normal order in this kind of sentence is:

subject + predicate noun + ne

That is why ne comes last here.