Jiya da dare ɗan uwana yana da tari da mura, bai iya barci sosai ba.

Last night my brother had a cough and a cold; he could not sleep well.

Breakdown of Jiya da dare ɗan uwana yana da tari da mura, bai iya barci sosai ba.

• ne: to be
• da: to have
• da: and
• ba … ba: not
• da: during
• dare: the night
• jiya: yesterday
• barci: the sleep
• iya: can
• ɗan uwa: the brother
• sosai: much
• tari: the cough
• mura: the cold

Questions & Answers about Jiya da dare ɗan uwana yana da tari da mura, bai iya barci sosai ba.

What does jiya da dare literally mean, and could I say it a different way?

Jiya da dare is literally “yesterday at night” or “yesterday night.”

• jiya = yesterday
• da = with/at (here it links the time words)
• dare = night

Other natural options with almost the same meaning:

• daren jiya – literally “the night of yesterday”
• jiya da yamma – yesterday evening (earlier than dare)

All of these rely on context to decide whether you mean “last night” in the recent past.

In ɗan uwana, what does each part mean, and does it always mean “my brother”?

Breakdown:

• ɗan = son / male child
• uwa = mother
• ɗan uwa literally = “child of the same mother” → sibling / close relative
• -na = my (attached to the noun: uwana = my sibling/relative)

So ɗan uwana is literally “my sibling (male)”, but in everyday speech it most often means:

• my brother (male sibling), or
• a close male cousin / male relative (depending on context and region)

For a female, you’d say:

• ’yar uwata = my (female) sibling / my sister
  
  • ’yar = daughter / female child
  • -ta = my (feminine possessive form attached here)

So ɗan uwana specifically implies a male relative.

Why is it ɗan uwana and not ɗan uwa na? Is that just a contraction?

Yes, it is essentially a contraction.

Full, “separated” form:

• ɗan uwa na = child-of sibling my

In everyday speech and writing, possessive pronouns are commonly attached to the noun:

• uwa + na → uwana
• So ɗan uwana = ɗan uwa na

Both are understood, but ɗan uwana is the more natural, fluent form.

What does yana da mean here, and is this always how you say “has”?

In this sentence, yana da means “he has” (in the sense of is experiencing / is suffering from).

Breakdown:

• ya = he
• na (here part of yana) = progressive marker → “is …ing”
• yana = he is (in an ongoing state)
• da = with / having

So yana da tari da mura = he is with cough and cold → he has a cough and a cold.

Hausa often uses yana da + [illness] for temporary conditions:

• yana da ciwon kai – he has a headache
• yana da zazzaɓi – he has a fever

For more general possession (permanent, ownership), you can still use yana da, but context decides:

• yana da mota – he has a car / he owns a car

So yana da is very common for “has”, especially for current states (health, possessions, etc.).

The word da appears twice: in jiya da dare and tari da mura. Does da mean the same thing in both places?

It’s the same word da, but it plays slightly different roles depending on context:

1. jiya da dare

   • here da ≈ “at / with” in time expressions
   • literally “yesterday with night” → yesterday at night / last night

2. tari da mura

   • here da = “and”
   • cough and cold

So:

• da can mean “and” (linking two nouns), and
• da can also be used to form time expressions (jiya da safe – yesterday morning, gobe da yamma – tomorrow evening), or “with” in other contexts.

The learner must rely on context to know whether da is “and” or “with/at.”

What exactly are tari and mura? Are they verbs or nouns?

Both tari and mura are nouns:

• tari = cough (the condition / the symptom)
• mura = cold (as in a head cold, often also covering what English speakers might call “flu” in everyday talk)

So yana da tari da mura is structurally:

• [he is with] [cough] and [cold] → he has a cough and a cold.

If you want the verb “to cough”, you might see:

• yana tari – he is coughing
• ya tari – he coughed

How does the negative bai iya barci sosai ba work? Why are there two ba’s?

Hausa standard negation in this kind of sentence uses ba … ba around the verb phrase.

In bai iya barci sosai ba:

• ba- = negative marker
• -i (in bai) = part of the 3rd person masculine form (from ya)
• iya = be able, can
• barci = sleep (noun)
• sosai = very, much, well
• final ba = the closing negative particle

So the structure is:

• bai (ba + ya) + iya barci sosai
  • ba
• literally: “he-not can sleep well not” → he could not sleep well

The first ba (inside bai) opens the negative clause with the subject; the final ba closes it.
This ba … ba frame is very typical in Hausa standard negative sentences.

Why use iya here? What’s the difference between bai iya barci sosai ba and bai yi barci sosai ba?

Iya means “to be able to / can”.

• bai iya barci sosai ba

  • literally: “he was not able to sleep well”
  • focuses on ability / possibility → he couldn’t sleep well (maybe he tried)

• bai yi barci sosai ba

  • literally: “he did not do sleep well”
  • focuses on the fact that he didn’t sleep well (no strong implication about ability, just the result)

In many contexts they overlap in meaning, but:

• with iya: more like “couldn’t”
• with yi: more like “didn’t”

Why is barci used after iya? Isn’t there a verb “to sleep”?

In Hausa, the concept “sleep” is often expressed as a noun:

• barci = sleep (noun)

To say “sleep” as an action, Hausa frequently uses verb + barci:

• yin barci – to sleep (literally “doing sleep”)
• ya yi barci – he slept
• bai yi barci ba – he didn’t sleep

With iya, Hausa keeps barci as a noun:

• iya barci – be able to sleep
• bai iya barci sosai ba – he could not sleep well

So think of it like: “be able [to do] sleep”, where sleep is a noun, not an infinitive.

Why is the verb yana in a kind of “present tense” form even though this is “last night”? How do we know it’s past?

Hausa relies heavily on time expressions (like jiya da dare) to show when an action happened.

• yana da tari da mura by itself = he has a cough and a cold (now)
• Adding jiya da dare = last night shifts the whole event to the past.

So:

• jiya da dare ɗan uwana yana da tari da mura
  → understood as “last night my brother had a cough and a cold”

Hausa imperfective forms like yana can be used with past time adverbs to refer to ongoing states in the past. The time phrase jiya da dare gives the past reference.

Is the word order in the sentence fixed, or could I rearrange parts like in English?

The basic Hausa word order is Subject – (Tense/Aspect) – Verb – Objects/Complements – (Final negative ba).

In the full sentence:

• Jiya da dare – time expression (can come first or later)
• ɗan uwana – subject (my brother)
• yana da – verb phrase (“has / is with”)
• tari da mura – objects (cough and cold)
• bai iya barci sosai ba – 2nd clause (he couldn’t sleep well)

You could move the time expression, for example:

• ɗan uwana yana da tari da mura jiya da dare
  (still understandable, but less common; Hausa usually likes time at the beginning)

However, you cannot freely move elements across the ba … ba frame or break the subject + verb order without sounding wrong or very marked. So:

• bai iya barci sosai ba must keep:
  • bai (negative + subject)
  • then iya barci sosai
  • then the closing ba.