Learn Hardcore Hausa: Ya kamata mu girmama haƙƙin jiki da hankalin kowa, ko yaro ko babba. - We should respect everyone’s bodily and mental rights, whether child or adult.

Literally, kamata is a noun meaning “suitability, appropriateness, what is fitting”.
ya here is historically a 3rd person masculine perfective pronoun (“he/it did X”), but in this fixed phrase ya kamata it no longer really means “he/it”; it just forms the idiom.

So ya kamata mu girmama… = “we should respect / it is proper that we respect …”

You can use it with any subject:

Ya kamata in tafi. – I should go.
Ya kamata su zo da wuri. – They should come early.

Negation:

Ba ya kamata mu yi haka ba. – We shouldn’t do that / It is not right for us to do that.

In ya kamata mu girmama, why is mu placed before the verb girmama?

In Hausa, subject pronouns normally come before the verb. After ya kamata, you typically get:

ya kamata + subject pronoun + bare verb

So:

ya kamata mu girmama = we should respect
ya kamata ka tafi = you (sg.) should go
ya kamata su yi magana = they should speak

Here, mu is the independent subject pronoun “we”, and girmama is the verb in a kind of subjunctive/mandative form (no tense marker). The pattern is similar to English “that we respect”, “that they go”, etc.

What exactly does girmama mean? Is it just “to respect”?

Girmama means “to respect, to honor, to hold in high regard”. It’s a fairly strong, positive word.

Nuances:

It can mean to show honor, especially to people, their status, or their rights.
It comes from girma (greatness, importance, bigness) + a causative/extended form, so it’s like “to treat as important/great.”

Examples:

Ya kamata mu girmama iyaye. – We should respect/honor parents.
Sun girmama bakinsu sosai. – They honored their guest very much.

A more neutral or everyday “respect” for people/things can also be expressed with:

mutunta – to respect, to treat with dignity
daraja (as a verb in some dialects/contexts) – to honour, to value

In this sentence, girmama haƙƙin jiki da hankalin kowa strongly suggests upholding and honoring people’s bodily and mental rights, not just “not being rude.”

What is the function of the -n ending in haƙƙin and hankalin?

The -n (or -r after some vowels) is the genitive linker in Hausa. It links a noun to what comes after it, often showing possession or “of”.

haƙƙi – right / rights
haƙƙin jiki – the right(s) of the body / bodily rights
hankali – mind, sense, reason
hankalin kowa – everyone’s mind / the mind of everyone

So the structure is:

haƙƙi + n + jiki → haƙƙin jiki (the body’s right(s))
hankali + n + kowa → hankalin kowa (everyone’s mind)

This -n works very much like “of” or the English possessive ’s:

motar Malam – the teacher’s car (the car of the teacher)
sunanka – your name (literally “name-your”, but same linking idea)

Why is the English translation “rights” plural, when haƙƙin is grammatically singular in Hausa?

In Hausa, haƙƙi (right) often behaves like a mass or collective noun when you talk generally about people’s rights. One singular form can cover the idea of “rights” in general.

haƙƙi – right / entitlement / due
haƙƙin jiki – bodily rights (collective sense)
haƙƙin ɗan adam – human rights

There is a plural form:

haƙƙoƙi – rights (separate, countable individual rights)

You might use the plural when you want to emphasize several distinct specific rights:

haƙƙoƙin ɗalibai – the students’ (various) rights
Ya kamata mu kare haƙƙoƙin mata. – We should protect women’s rights.

But in normal, general statements, haƙƙin jiki can naturally be translated as “bodily rights” in English.

What do jiki and hankali each mean here?

jiki = body, physical body
hankali = mind, sense, mental faculty, reason, good sense

In this sentence:

haƙƙin jiki = “bodily rights” – a person’s right over their own physical body (physical safety, bodily integrity, etc.)
hankalin kowa = “everyone’s mind / mental integrity / mental well-being”

So the phrase as a whole refers to respecting both the physical and mental/psychological aspects of a person.

Does kowa mean “everybody” or “anybody”, and is it singular or plural?

kowa is an indefinite pronoun that can mean:

“everyone, everybody, every person”
“anyone, anybody” (depending on context)

Grammatically, Hausa usually treats kowa as singular for agreement, but semantically it refers to all people.

Examples:

Kowa ya san haka. – Everybody knows that.
Ba kowa ne ya zo ba. – Not everyone came. / Not just anyone came. (depending on context)

In your sentence:

hankalin kowa = everyone’s mind / the mind of every person
plus ko yaro ko babba clarifies that “everyone” includes both children and adults.

In haƙƙin jiki da hankalin kowa, does kowa modify only hankali, or both jiki and hankali?

Formally, kowa is attached only to hankali (via hankalin kowa), but semantically it’s understood to apply to both:

haƙƙin jiki da hankalin kowa
≈ the rights of the body and mind of everyone

The more fully “spelled out” version would be something like:

haƙƙin jikin kowa da hankalin kowa
(the bodily rights of everyone and the mental rights of everyone)

Hausa often avoids such repetition when the meaning is clear, so speakers are happy to shorten it to haƙƙin jiki da hankalin kowa and rely on context to show that kowa applies to the whole phrase “body and mind”.

How should I understand the structure ko yaro ko babba?

ko … ko … is a common Hausa pattern meaning “either … or … / whether … or …”.

ko yaro ko babba literally: either child or big-(person)
Idiomatically: “whether a child or an adult” / “whether young or old.”

The pattern:

ko X ko Y – whether X or Y / either X or Y

Examples:

Ko mace ko namiji za a taimaka. – Whether (you are) a woman or a man, help will be given.
Ko da safe ko da yamma, suna aiki. – Whether morning or evening, they are working.

In your sentence it emphasizes that “everyone” (kowa) really means everyone, across age groups.

Is yaro specifically “boy”, so how can it stand for “child” generally here?

In strict dictionary terms:

yaro = boy / male child
yarinya = girl / female child

However, in many everyday contexts, yaro is also used more generally as “child”, not focusing strongly on gender, especially in set pairings like:

yaro da babba – child and adult
yara (plural of yaro) – children (boys and girls together)

In ko yaro ko babba, the contrast is about age/status (child vs. adult), not gender. A more explicitly gender-neutral or inclusive phrase could be made, but this pairing is idiomatic and commonly understood to include all children.

What does babba literally mean here?

babba is an adjective meaning:

big, great, large
by extension: grown-up, elder, older person, adult, important person

So:

mutum babba – an adult / a grown person
’yan uwa babba da ƙanana – older and younger relatives
babbansa – his elder / his older one

In ko yaro ko babba, babba is used in the sense of “adult / grown person / elder”, contrasting with yaro (child).

Why is there no word for “the” or “a” in this Hausa sentence?

Hausa does not have separate articles like English “a/an/the”. Nouns are usually bare, and definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from:

context
pronouns
demonstratives (e.g. wannan – this, wancan – that)
possessive markers, etc.

So:

haƙƙin jiki da hankalin kowa can be translated as:
- the bodily and mental rights of everyone
- or simply people’s bodily and mental rights

English has to pick “the” or drop it, but Hausa expresses the general, universal idea without any article.

Is ya here a past tense marker? Does this sentence talk about the past?

No. In ya kamata, the ya is not functioning as an ordinary past/perfective tense marker. The whole phrase ya kamata is treated as an idiom equivalent to “should / ought to / it is proper”, and it can refer to:

present: Ya kamata mu girmama haƙƙin jiki… – We should (now / always) respect bodily rights…
future: Ya kamata mu tafi gobe. – We should go tomorrow.

When ya is used as a regular tense marker outside this idiom, then it does indicate a completed action in the past:

Ya tafi. – He went / He has gone.
Ya ci abinci. – He ate / He has eaten.

So: in ya kamata, think of it as a fixed modal expression, not as a normal past tense.

How is the consonant ƙ pronounced in haƙƙin, and why are there two of them?

Hausa distinguishes between k and ƙ:

k – a plain [k] sound, like English k in “cat”.
ƙ – an ejective [kʼ]; it’s made with a bit of a glottal “pop” or stronger burst of air. English doesn’t have it, but you can approximate it with a tense, more forceful k.

In haƙƙin:

you have ƙƙ, a geminated (doubled) consonant, so:
- ha-ƙƙin is pronounced with a held, longer ejective k sound in the middle.

Compare (simplified for learners):

hakin (if it existed) → short k
haƙƙin → tense, “popped”, and doubled k sound

In careful speech this contrast matters in Hausa, though many learners approximate it with a strong “k” and focus more on being consistent with k vs ƙ in spelling.