Breakdown of A lokacin barci kowa yana cikin gida.
Questions & Answers about A lokacin barci kowa yana cikin gida.
“A lokacin barci” literally breaks down as:
- a – a preposition meaning “at / in / on” (here: at).
- lokaci – “time”.
- lokacin – “the time of …” (the -n is a linking/genitive ending).
- barci – “sleep / sleeping” (a noun).
So “a lokacin barci” = “at the time of sleep / at sleeping time (at bedtime)”.
The “A” is just the preposition “at” used with a time expression, exactly like “At bedtime …” in English.
In “A lokacin barci kowa yana cikin gida”, barci is a noun, meaning “sleep” or “sleeping”.
- Hausa often uses a noun of action where English might use a gerund (“sleeping”) or a verb.
- So “lokacin barci” is literally “the time of sleep”, not “the time when they sleep” grammatically, even though the meaning is similar.
If you wanted a verb, you’d use something like “yana barci” – “he is sleeping.” Here, barci is the object of lokacin (“time of sleep”).
Both patterns exist in Hausa, but they’re used slightly differently:
lokacin barci
- This is noun + genitive ending (-n) + noun,
- literally “the time of sleep”.
- It’s the most natural way to say “sleeping time / bedtime”.
lokaci na barci
- lokaci = time, na = linking/genitive particle “of”, barci = sleep.
- Also technically “time of sleep”, but in this particular fixed expression, speakers generally prefer “lokacin barci”.
So “lokacin barci” is simply the more idiomatic, set phrase for “bedtime / sleeping time” in this context.
In Hausa, kowa (“everyone, everybody”) normally takes singular agreement, typically 3rd person masculine:
- kowa yana… – everyone is …
- kowa ya zo – everyone came (literally “everyone he-came”).
So:
- kowa yana cikin gida = everyone is inside the house
(with yana = 3rd person singular masculine).
Using “suna” (3rd person plural) with kowa would be ungrammatical in standard Hausa, just as in English we say “everyone is”, not “everyone are”.
Yes. In “kowa yana cikin gida”:
- y- – 3rd person masculine subject prefix.
- -na – progressive/imperfective marker.
So yana is the progressive/imperfective form:
“he is / he is being / he is (currently)”.
When used with a location phrase like “cikin gida”, it usually means “is (located)” rather than an ongoing action:
- yana cikin gida ≈ “he is inside the house / he is in the house.”
It doesn’t necessarily emphasize ongoing activity; it just states the current or usual state. In context with “a lokacin barci”, it can be translated as:
- “At bedtime, everyone is inside the house.”
Both are possible, but they have slightly different nuances:
- a gida – “at home / in the house” (broader, “at that location”).
- cikin gida – literally “inside the house” (emphasizes being inside, not outside).
By saying “yana cikin gida”, the sentence stresses that everyone is inside the house at that time, not just at home in a general sense or around the house. It’s a bit more concrete and spatially specific than “a gida”.
In “yana cikin gida”, cikin works as a locative noun/preposition meaning roughly “inside (of)”:
- ciki – “inside, interior”.
- cikin – “the inside of … / in(side) the …”
So:
- cikin gida = “inside the house” (= in the interior of the house).
You often see it after verbs of being/position:
- yana cikin mota – he is inside the car.
- suna cikin daki – they are in the room.
Grammatically it behaves like a noun taking a genitive relationship (the “inside of the house”), but in practice you can think of it as a preposition “inside”.
Yes, you can also say:
- yana a cikin gida – literally “he is at in-the-inside of the house.”
Both “yana cikin gida” and “yana a cikin gida” are used. The difference is subtle:
yana cikin gida
- Slightly more compact; very common.
- Literally “he is inside the house.”
yana a cikin gida
- Explicitly keeps the preposition a (“at / in”) plus cikin (“inside (of)”).
- Sometimes sounds a bit more formal or emphatic.
In everyday speech, “yana cikin gida” on its own is completely natural and fully correct.
Yes. Both orders are correct:
- A lokacin barci kowa yana cikin gida.
- Kowa yana cikin gida a lokacin barci.
Hausa word order is relatively flexible for time and place expressions. Moving “a lokacin barci” to the end just shifts the emphasis slightly:
- Version 1 starts by setting the time: At bedtime, as for everyone, they’re inside.
- Version 2 starts with the people: Everyone is inside the house—at that time.
In normal conversation both are fine and natural.
Yes, in many varieties of Hausa you will hear a short form of the progressive:
- kowa na cikin gida
- na is a reduced form of yana, after a noun subject.
- It still means “everyone is inside the house.”
So you may see or hear:
- Mutane na cikin gida. – People are inside the house.
- Kowa na cikin gida. – Everyone is inside the house.
Both “kowa na cikin gida” and “kowa yana cikin gida” are acceptable. The “na” form is often more colloquial/compact.
No copula “ne/ce” is required in the basic statement:
- A lokacin barci kowa yana cikin gida.
The verb-like element “yana” already functions as the main predicate (“is [inside]”). You use ne/ce mainly in:
- Equational sentences: X is Y, with no other main verb.
- Or sometimes for focus/emphasis.
In speech you might hear something like “kowa yana cikin gida ne” with ne for extra emphasis or in some dialects, but it’s not necessary and the neutral, textbook form is without ne/ce here.
Both spellings appear:
- barci – widely used spelling in many modern Hausa materials.
- bacci – an older or alternative orthography representing the same word.
They both refer to the same word “sleep / sleeping”. Spelling conventions have varied over time and across publishers. For your purposes, treat “barci” as the standard modern spelling, but don’t be surprised if you see “bacci” in some books or texts.
To make the subject explicitly “we all” rather than “everyone”, you can say:
- A lokacin barci mu duka muna cikin gida.
- mu duka – we all
- muna – 1st person plural progressive “we are”
- cikin gida – inside the house.
So the pattern is:
- A lokacin barci + [pronoun + duka] + [appropriate -na form] + cikin gida.
For example:
- A lokacin barci su duka suna cikin gida. – At bedtime, they are all inside the house.