Uwa ta ce kar mu yi barci idan ciki yana ciwo sosai.

In Hausa, a full noun subject (like Uwa, “mother”) is usually followed by a subject pronoun that agrees with it in person, number, and gender:

• Uwa ta ce … – Mother (she) said …
• Ali ya ce … – Ali (he) said …
• Yara sun tafi. – The children (they) went.

The pronoun (ta, ya, sun, etc.) is what actually carries the tense/aspect and person marking. The noun (Uwa) is like a label attached to that pronoun.

So it is not redundant; Uwa identifies who, and ta is the grammatical subject marker.

Ta ce is the perfective form of “to say”, so its basic meaning is “she said” (a completed action in the past).

However, in real usage it can sometimes be translated as present in English, especially when introducing direct speech:

• Ta ce “zan zo gobe.” – literally “She said ‘I will come tomorrow,’” but often translated as “She says she’ll come tomorrow.”

In your sentence, Uwa ta ce … is best understood as “Mother said …” (a past instruction). If you wanted “Mother (always) says …” you’d more typically use a habitual form like:

• Uwa tana cewa … – Mother says / keeps saying …

Kar is the negative imperative / prohibitive particle: it’s used to say “don’t …” or “must not …”.

• Kar ka tafi. – Don’t go (you, male).
• Kar ki yi haka. – Don’t do that (you, female).
• Kar mu yi barci. – Let’s not sleep / We mustn’t sleep.

Key points:

• Kar (and its slightly longer, often more formal variant kada) is for commands, warnings, or advice.
• Ba is the general sentence negator; it’s used to negate statements, not commands:
  • Ba mu yin barci. – We don’t sleep / We are not sleeping.
• Kar
  • subjunctive verb form is the usual pattern for “don’t …”.

So kar mu yi barci is “(she said that) we should not sleep,” not just a statement “we don’t sleep.”

In Hausa, barci is basically a noun meaning sleep (the state/thing), not a simple verb. To express “to sleep” as an action, Hausa commonly uses the light verb yi (“do”) plus the noun:

• yi barci – to sleep (literally: do sleep)
• yi wanka – to bathe (do bath)
• yi magana – to speak (do speech)

So:

• mu yi barci – that we (should) sleep.
• With the prohibitive: kar mu yi barci – that we must not sleep / let’s not sleep.

Saying “kar mu barci” is not standard; you need yi to turn barci into a verbal expression.

Yes, barci and bacci are the same word, just different orthographic conventions:

• barci – common spelling in Boko Hausa orthography.
• bacci – older or alternative spelling following a different system.

Both mean “sleep (as a noun)”. When you see:

• yi barci / yi bacci – they both mean “to sleep.”

In modern learning materials, you’ll most often see barci.

Idan can mean both “if” and “when/whenever”, depending on context.

In your sentence:

• idan ciki yana ciwo sosai – if the stomach hurts a lot (or when the stomach hurts a lot).

Both readings are possible, but English usually prefers “if” here because it sounds like a conditional instruction: “Mother said we mustn’t sleep if the stomach hurts a lot.”

So think of idan as a general conditional/temporal “if/when” connector.

Hausa can use a bare body-part noun like ciki generically to mean “one’s stomach” or “the stomach (in question)” when the owner is obvious from context.

So:

• idan ciki yana ciwo sosai – literally “if stomach is hurting a lot,” understood as “if the stomach (our/your/etc.) hurts a lot.”

You could specify the possessor:

• idan cikina yana ciwo sosai – if my stomach hurts a lot.
• idan cikinka yana ciwo sosai – if your (m.) stomach hurts a lot.

But the original sentence is making a general rule, so using just ciki works naturally in Hausa.

Breakdown:

• ciki – stomach / inside
• yana – 3rd person masculine singular progressive marker (“he/it is …ing”)
• ciwo – pain, ache, illness (a noun)
• sosai – very, a lot, badly

The structure X yana ciwo literally means “X is (at) pain / is hurting”:

• ciki yana ciwo – the stomach is hurting.
• kai yana ciwo – the head is hurting.
• idona na ciwo – my eye hurts.

So yana here is the auxiliary marking ongoing state, and ciwo is the noun “pain” being predicated of the subject. The whole phrase ciki yana ciwo sosai = the stomach is in a lot of pain / is hurting a lot.

Yes, you can. Both are used in Hausa:

• ciki yana ciwo sosai
• ciki na ciwo sosai

They mean basically the same thing: “the stomach hurts a lot.”

Differences:

• yana ciwo is explicitly progressive/continuous (“is hurting”).
• na ciwo is a slightly shorter form; in many contexts it feels a bit more colloquial and can sound like a state: “is painful / is aching.”

In everyday speech, both patterns are very common for body pains. You’ll hear:

• cikina yana ciwo and cikina na ciwo – my stomach hurts.

Sosai is an intensifier meaning “very, very much, badly, a lot.”

In ciki yana ciwo sosai, it intensifies the pain:

• ciki yana ciwo – the stomach hurts.
• ciki yana ciwo sosai – the stomach really hurts / hurts a lot / hurts badly.

Placement:

• Typically comes after the verb phrase or predicate it modifies:
  • yana ciwo sosai
  • ta gaji sosai – she is very tired.
  • sun ji daɗi sosai – they enjoyed it very much.

Sometimes it can appear earlier for emphasis, but after the main predicate is the standard, neutral place.

Yes, the structure after ta ce is basically a subordinate clause similar to English “that …”, but Hausa often does not use an explicit word for “that” here.

• Uwa ta ce [ kar mu yi barci idan ciki yana ciwo sosai ].

You can think of it as:

• Mother said [we should not sleep if the stomach hurts a lot].

There is a Hausa word cewa that can function like “that”:

• Uwa ta ce cewa kar mu yi barci … – Mother said that we should not sleep …

But cewa is optional and often omitted in everyday speech, as in your sentence.

You can move the idan-clause around somewhat, but you have to be careful about what exactly is being modified.

Your original:

• Uwa ta ce kar mu yi barci idan ciki yana ciwo sosai.
  → The condition “if the stomach hurts a lot” applies to “we must not sleep.”

If you say:

• Idan ciki yana ciwo sosai, uwa ta ce kar mu yi barci.

this usually still means: “If the stomach hurts a lot, Mother said we must not sleep.” (the condition still relates to the not-sleeping rule, just fronted for emphasis).

But if you put idan after ta ce, it can start to sound like the condition is about when she said it, not about the sleeping:

• Uwa ta ce idan ciki yana ciwo sosai, kar mu yi barci.
  – Mother said: “If the stomach hurts a lot, we must not sleep.”
  (Here the idan clause is clearly inside what she said.)

So yes, you can front the idan-clause, but keep the grouping clear so it still modifies the intended part of the sentence.

Kar mu yi barci can range from strong warning to firm advice, depending on tone and context.

• As a bare grammatical form, kar + subjunctive often corresponds to English “don’t / must not / should not.”
• In this sentence with “Uwa ta ce …”, it sounds quite firm, like a parental rule:
  “Mother said we must not sleep if the stomach hurts a lot.”

You could soften or strengthen it in context with extra words (e.g. a fi so, dole ne, lallai, etc.), but on its own kar mu yi barci is already a clear prohibition rather than a mild, optional suggestion.