Uwa tana raba abinci da yara.

Mother is sharing food with the children.

Breakdown of Uwa tana raba abinci da yara.

• ne: to be
• abinci: the food
• da: with
• yaro: the child
• uwa: the mother
• raba: to share

Questions & Answers about Uwa tana raba abinci da yara.

What exactly does tana mean, and why not just say ta raba?

tana is a combination of:

• ta = she (3rd person singular feminine subject pronoun)
• na = a marker of progressive / continuous aspect

When joined, ta + na → tana, written as one word in normal writing.

So:

• Uwa tana raba abinci da yara.
  = The mother is sharing food with the children (an ongoing or habitual action)

If you say:

• Uwa ta raba abinci da yara.
  this normally means The mother *shared food with the children* (a completed action, past/perfective).

Is tana only for feminine subjects? What would the sentence look like with a father instead of a mother?

Yes. tana agrees with a feminine singular subject.

For different subjects in the progressive you get:

• Ni (I) → ina
• Kai/Ke (you m./f.) → kana / kina
• Shi (he) → yana
• Ita (she) → tana
• Mu (we) → muna
• Ku (you pl.) → kuna
• Su (they) → suna

So with a father (uba):

• Uba yana raba abinci da yara.
  = The father is sharing food with the children.

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

Hausa usually does not have separate words for the articles “the” and “a/an” like English does.

The bare noun can cover both ideas:

• uwa can be a mother or the mother
• yara can be children or the children

Which one you choose in English depends on context, not on a special Hausa word.

If Hausa needs to be very specific (e.g., this mother, those children), it typically uses demonstratives:

• wannan uwa – this mother
• waccan uwa – that mother
• waɗannan yara – these children

What does raba mean here? Is it “divide”, “share”, or “separate”?

The verb raba has a general meaning of dividing or separating something.
Depending on context, it can be:

• to divide, split – raba kek = divide a cake
• to share, distribute – raba abinci = share/distribute food
• to separate – raba su biyu = separate them into two

In Uwa tana raba abinci da yara, the natural reading is “is sharing/distributing food” to/among the children.

What does da yara mean exactly: “with the children”, “to the children”, or “and the children”?

The word da is very flexible in Hausa. Common uses:

1. “and” (linking two nouns)
   
   • uwa da uba = mother and father
2. “with” (comitative)
   
   • Na zo da yara. = I came with the children.
3. In certain verb patterns, it marks who receives or shares in something.

In raba X da Y, the pattern typically means “to share X with Y” or “to distribute X among Y”.

So:

• Uwa tana raba abinci da yara.
  = The mother is sharing food with the children / distributing food among the children.

You would not translate da here as simple “and” in English, because it is tied to the verb’s meaning of distributing something to someone.

Could you say “Uwa tana raba abinci ga yara” instead of “da yara”?

Yes, ga can also mark a kind of indirect object (“to/for”) and is used with many verbs.

• Uwa tana raba abinci ga yara.
  Also understandable as The mother is giving/sharing food to the children.

Fine points:

• da with raba is very natural and common: raba abinci da yara
• ga is more like “to / for” and may slightly emphasize direction: toward the children.

Both are grammatically acceptable; da with raba is often the default.

Is yara the plural of some other word? Why doesn’t it look like a regular “-s” plural?

Yes. yara is the plural of yaro:

• yaro = child (often “boy”, but can be “child” in many contexts)
• yara = children

This is an example of a broken plural: the word changes form inside, rather than just adding a simple ending (like -s in English). Hausa has many such plurals.

Some relevant pairs:

• ɗalibi → ɗalibai (student → students)
• mutum → mutane (person → people)
• yaro → yara (child → children)

So in Uwa tana raba abinci da yara, yara clearly refers to more than one child.

What role is abinci playing in the sentence, and does it have a plural?

In Uwa tana raba abinci da yara:

• abinci = food
• It is the direct object of the verb raba (the thing being divided/shared).

About plural:

• abinci is usually treated as a mass noun (like “food” in English), so it often doesn’t need a plural in everyday usage.
• There is a plural abincai/abince in some contexts, especially when you mean different kinds of foods / individual food items, but it’s much less common in simple sentences like this.

So abinci here is just “food” in a general sense.

Why is the word order Subject – tana – verb – object – da + noun? Is that the normal order in Hausa?

Yes, this is a typical Hausa clause structure.

Breakdown:

• Uwa – subject (the doer)
• tana – subject pronoun + progressive marker (“she is …”)
• raba – main verb
• abinci – direct object (what is being shared)
• da yara – prepositional phrase (who receives it / who shares in it)

So the order is:

Subject – (pronoun/aspect) – Verb – Object – Prepositional phrase

This aligns fairly well with English SVO:

• The mother is sharing food with the children.

Can tana raba here mean a habitual action (something she does regularly), or only an action taking place right now?

The progressive/continuous form in Hausa (tana + verb) can cover:

1. Action happening now
   
   • The mother is (right now) sharing food with the children.
2. Habitual / repeated present (depending on context)
   
   • The mother (regularly/usually) shares food with the children.

Hausa relies heavily on context and adverbs to clarify:

• Kullum, uwa tana raba abinci da yara.
  = Every day, the mother shares food with the children. (clearly habitual)

Without extra context, Uwa tana raba abinci da yara. is neutral and can be understood either as “is sharing” (right now) or “shares” (habitually).