Learn Hardcore Hausa: Lokacin hira, uwa ta ce, "Ina so ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa lokacin da kuka ga su." - During the chat, mother said, "I want you plural to greet your younger siblings when you see them."

Hausa often uses a bare time-expression or genitive phrase like lokacin X instead of a separate preposition such as “during/while.” You could also say A lokacin hira (“at the time of the conversation”), but Lokacin hira, … is perfectly normal and already implies “during.”

Why do we have uwa ta ce and not just uwa ce? What is the role of ta here?

In uwa ta ce, we have:

uwa – mother
ta – 3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun (“she”)
ce – said

So it is literally “mother, she said.”

In Hausa, it is very common (and usually required) to have:

Full noun subject + matching subject pronoun + verb
Uwa ta ce – Mother (she) said

After you’ve introduced uwa, you can then just use the pronoun:

Ta ce… – She said…

You cannot normally say uwa ce to mean “mother said.” Ce in that pattern is usually the copula “to be” (as in “It is X”), not the verb “to say.” For “said,” you need the pronoun: ta ce.

Why is it ta ce and not ya ce? Does Hausa mark gender here?

Yes. Hausa marks grammatical gender in the third person singular:

ya ce – he said (masculine subject)
ta ce – she said (feminine subject)

The noun uwa (“mother”) is grammatically feminine, so the agreeing subject pronoun has to be ta:

uwa ta ce – the mother said (literally, mother she said).

In "Ina so ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa", what does Ina so mean exactly, and is there a difference between Ina so and Ina son?

Ina so is:

ina – I am / I (progressive marker)
so – to want / desire / like

So Ina so = “I want” or “I would like.”

About Ina so vs Ina son:

Ina so ku yi wa… – literally I want you (pl) to do…
Ina son ku – literally I love you (pl), or I like you (pl) as people.

Ina son is used when so directly takes a noun as its object and gets a genitive -n:

Ina son abinci. – I like food.
Ina son wasa. – I like play(ing).
Ina son ku. – I like/love you (pl).

When so is followed by a clause / verb phrase, Hausa very often just uses Ina so + clause:

Ina so ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa. – I want you to greet your younger siblings.

So:

Ina so
- verb/clause
Ina son
- noun(-phrase)

What does ku do in Ina so ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa?

Ku is the 2nd person plural subject pronoun: you (plural).

The structure is:

Ina so [ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa].
– I want [you (pl) to give greetings to your younger siblings].

Inside the bracket, ku is the subject of yi (“do”). So this inner clause is basically:

ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa – you (pl) should greet your younger siblings.

So ku = “you all”, not singular. If she were talking to only one child, she would say Ina so ki yi wa… (to a girl) or Ina so ka yi wa… (to a boy).

What is the function of yi wa here? Why not just yi ƙannenku gaisuwa?

Yi is “to do / to make” and is used in many light-verb expressions. Wa marks an indirect object (“to / for someone”).

In yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa:

yi – do
wa – to / for (indirect object marker)
ƙannenku – your younger siblings
gaisuwa – greetings (noun)

Literally: “do greetings to your younger siblings.”
Idiomatic English: “greet your younger siblings.”

You would not say *yi ƙannenku gaisuwa; you need wa before the person who receives the “greeting” because they are the indirect object:

Yi wa mahaifinka gaisuwa. – Greet your father.
Yi wa malamai gaisuwa. – Greet the teachers.

Why is gaisuwa (a noun) used, instead of a verb like “to greet”?

Hausa often uses light verbs like yi (“do”) + a noun to express actions:

yi tambaya – to ask a question (literally, do a question)
yi magana – to speak / talk (literally, do speech)
yi bacci – to sleep (literally, do sleep)
yi wa wani gaisuwa – to greet someone (literally, do greeting to someone)

So gaisuwa is the noun “greeting”, and yi wa X gaisuwa is the idiomatic way to say “greet X”.

There is also a verb gaishe (“to greet”), but yi wa … gaisuwa is very common and fully natural.

How is ƙannenku formed, and what does it tell us exactly?

Ƙannenku breaks down as:

ƙanne – younger siblings (plural of ƙanƙa / ƙane / ƙanwa, depending on dialect)
-n- – genitive linker “of”
ku – “you (plural)” as a possessive pronoun (“your”)

So:

ƙanne-n-ku → ƙannenku – your younger siblings.

It expresses:

Kinship type: ƙanne = younger siblings (as opposed to ’yan uwa in general, or yayanku = your older siblings).
Possession: -nku = belonging to you all.

So it is specifically “your younger siblings (younger brothers/sisters).”

Why is there su at the end of lokacin da kuka ga su? Can it be omitted?

In lokacin da kuka ga su:

lokacin da – the time that / when
kuka ga – you (pl) saw (relative-clause form)
su – them (3rd person plural object pronoun)

So this means “when you (pl) saw them / when you (pl) see them.”

In Hausa, when the object is a pronoun, it usually appears after the verb:

Na ga su. – I saw them.
Mun ji shi. – We heard him/it.

You cannot normally drop su if you mean “them.” Kuka ga on its own just means “you (pl) saw,” with no explicit object. The pronoun su is required to say who/what you saw.

Why is it kuka ga and not kun ga in lokacin da kuka ga su?

Hausa has different shapes of the subject pronouns in main clauses and in many relative or subordinate clauses introduced by da (“that/when/who/which”).

Main-clause 2nd plural perfective: kun ga – you (pl) saw / have seen
- Kun ga su. – You (pl) saw them.
Relative/subordinate 2nd plural perfective (with … da …): kuka ga
- Lokacin da kuka ga su. – The time when you (pl) saw them.

Compare:

Ku ga shi. – You (pl) saw him. (plain statement)
Mutumin da kuka ga shi. – The man that you saw.

So in lokacin da …, we are in that “da + clause” environment, and therefore Hausa uses the relative form kuka, not kun.

What does lokacin da mean, and how is it different from other “when” words like idan or sa’ad da?

Lokacin da literally is:

lokaci-n – the time (of)
da – that / when (linking word)

So lokacin da = “the time that…”, used as “when”:

Lokacin da kuka ga su… – When you saw them…

Compared with other “when”-type expressions:

idan – “if / when (whenever)” in a more general or conditional sense
- Idan kuka ga su, ku gaishe su. – When(ever)/If you see them, greet them.
sa’ad da – “when (at that time)” more explicitly time-focused, often a bit more formal or literary
- Sa’ad da na isa, na same shi. – When I arrived, I found him.
lokacin da – literally “the time that,” often used when you are foregrounding a specific time of something happening, like here:
- Lokacin da kuka ga su – at the (specific) time when you see them.

In many everyday contexts, there is overlap, and speakers may choose between idan, lokacin da, and sa’ad da depending on nuance and style.

Who is the “you” in this sentence? Is ku only plural, or can it be polite singular?

In standard Hausa:

ku is you (plural).
Singular “you” is kai (subject ka) for a male, and ke/ki (subject ki) for a female.

So in:

Ina so ku yi wa ƙannenku gaisuwa…

ku = “you all”, multiple addressees (probably several children).

Hausa does not systematically use ku as a polite singular like French vous or German Sie. If the mother is talking to one child, she would normally use:

Ina so ka yi wa ƙanninka gaisuwa… – to a boy
Ina so ki yi wa ƙanninki gaisuwa… – to a girl

Could the mother have said "Ina so ku yi wa ƙannanku gaisuwa" instead of ƙannenku? What’s the difference?

There’s a subtle form difference:

ƙannenku – your younger siblings (plural)
- structure: ƙanne-n-ku = younger-siblings-of-you(pl)
ƙannanku – would normally be parsed as ƙan-na-n-ku, which doesn’t match the regular plural ƙanne. It sounds off or at least non-standard in this exact context.

The regular plural form for younger siblings is ƙanne → ƙannenku (with -nku for “your (pl)”).

So here, ƙannenku is the correct, standard way to say “your younger siblings.”