Breakdown of Ni ina so in tallafa wa talakawa.
Questions & Answers about Ni ina so in tallafa wa talakawa.
They are related but not the same thing:
- ni = independent pronoun “I” (used for emphasis, contrast, or when the pronoun stands alone).
- ina = aspect + subject marker meaning roughly “I am / I (habitually)”.
- i- = marker used in the progressive/habitual aspect
- -na = “I” as a subject suffix
So ina so = “I (am) want(ing) / I want” as a full verb phrase.
In Ni ina so in tallafa wa talakawa, the ni is just emphasizing the subject:
- Ni ina so… ≈ “Me, I want…”
Without emphasis, you can simply say:
- Ina so in tallafa wa talakawa. – “I want to help the poor.”
Both are correct; ni is optional and adds emphasis or contrast.
ina so uses the progressive/habitual aspect, often called the “continuous” in Hausa grammars.
In English we don’t usually say “I am wanting”, so the most natural translation is:
- Ina so = “I want” or “I like / love” (depending on context).
The ina form is used both for:
- ongoing actions: Ina tafiya – “I am going.”
- current states / habits: Ina so shayi – “I like tea / I want tea.”
So here it expresses a current desire, which we translate as “I want”.
in here is a subjunctive subject marker for the 1st person singular (“that I …”).
Structure of the sentence:
- Ni ina so – “I want …”
- in tallafa wa talakawa – “that I help the poor” / “to help the poor”
After verbs of wanting, intention, deciding, etc. (so, ƙuduri, shirya, etc.), Hausa normally uses a subjunctive clause to express what you want to do.
The pattern is:
- Ina so in je. – “I want to go.” (lit. I want that I go.)
- Ina so in ci abinci. – “I want to eat food.”
So in our sentence, in marks the subject “I” inside that subordinate/subjunctive clause.
Each person has its own subjunctive subject marker. Roughly:
- in – “that I …”
- ka – “that you (m.sg) …”
- ki – “that you (f.sg) …”
- ya – “that he …”
- ta – “that she …”
- mu – “that we …”
- ku – “that you (pl.) …”
- su – “that they …”
Examples:
- Ina so in tafi. – “I want to go.”
- Kana so ka tafi. – “You (m.sg) want to go.”
- Suna so su tafi. – “They want to go.”
So in is specifically the 1st person singular form in this pattern.
tallafa is the verb “to support, assist, help”.
wa is a preposition/marker that often introduces an indirect object or beneficiary, close to English “to / for”.
So:
- tallafa wa talakawa ≈ “help to the poor / help the poor.”
You’ll see the same wa with many verbs when you say “do something to/for someone”:
- Ba da kuɗi wa talakawa. – “Give money to the poor.”
- Faɗa wa yara. – “Tell the children.” (lit. say to the children.)
In everyday writing you may also see tallafawa as a single word (see below), but grammatically it’s tallafa + wa.
They are related but not always identical in function:
tallafa wa (verb + preposition)
- Verb tallafa “to help” + wa “to/for (someone)”.
- Used in sentences like:
- Ina so in tallafa wa talakawa. – “I want to help the poor.”
tallafawa (verbal noun or derived form)
- Often treated as a verbal noun meaning “helping, support (as an activity)”:
- tallafawa talakawa – “the helping of the poor / support for the poor.”
- In practice, some speakers also write tallafawa where others write tallafa wa; orthography isn’t completely uniform.
- Often treated as a verbal noun meaning “helping, support (as an activity)”:
For learning purposes, it’s safe to think:
- tallafa wa X = “to help X (beneficiary)”
- tallafawa (sometimes) = “helping/support (noun)”
Yes, and that’s actually the more typical everyday version:
- Ina so in tallafa wa talakawa. – perfectly natural.
Using ni adds emphasis or contrast, something like:
- “Me, I want to help the poor (as opposed to others).”
So:
- With emphasis/contrast: Ni ina so in tallafa wa talakawa.
- Neutral statement: Ina so in tallafa wa talakawa.
talakawa is the plural of talaka.
Meanings:
- talaka – a poor/common person; an ordinary person without power or wealth.
- talakawa – poor/common people; the masses; ordinary people.
It often carries a sense of economically poor or socially low-status, but can also mean the general populace in contrast to rulers/elites.
In this sentence, a natural translation is “the poor” or “ordinary poor people.”
One natural negative form is:
- Ba na so in tallafa wa talakawa. – “I don’t want to help the poor.”
Breakdown:
- Ba na so … (ba). – “I don’t want …”
- Ba … ba is the typical negation frame.
- In speech, the second ba is often dropped, especially in short clauses.
- in tallafa wa talakawa – “that I help the poor / to help the poor.”
A slightly fuller form (with both negatives) could be:
- Ba na so in tallafa wa talakawa ba.
For now, Ba na so … is a good pattern to memorize for “I don’t want …”.
No, that would be ungrammatical in standard Hausa.
After ina so (“I want”), the action you want to do is normally expressed with a subjunctive clause that includes its own subject marker:
- Ina so in tafi. – “I want to go.”
- Ina so in ci. – “I want to eat.”
- Ina so in tallafa wa talakawa. – “I want to help the poor.”
You can’t drop the in (the 1st person subjunctive marker) in this structure. Hausa doesn’t use a bare infinitive here the way English does.
so covers several English meanings, depending on context:
- to want:
- Ina so in tafi. – “I want to go.”
- to like:
- Ina son shayi. – “I like tea.”
- to love (romantically or strongly):
- Ina son ki. – “I love you (to a female).”
In your sentence, ina so in tallafa wa talakawa clearly has the “want” / “desire to” meaning:
- “I want to help the poor.”
So think of so as a general word for “want/like/love”, with the specific English translation depending on context.