Kifurushi kilichopotea kiko hapa.

The lost parcel is here.

Breakdown of Kifurushi kilichopotea kiko hapa.

• kuwa: to be
• hapa: here
• kifurushi kilichopotea: the lost parcel

Questions & Answers about Kifurushi kilichopotea kiko hapa.

What noun class is kifurushi, and why does that matter?

Kifurushi is a class 7 singular noun. Its plural is vifurushi in class 8.

This matters because Swahili makes other parts of the sentence agree with the noun’s class. That is why you see class-7 agreement in both kilichopotea and kiko.

Why does kilichopotea come after kifurushi?

In Swahili, a descriptive relative clause usually comes after the noun it describes.

So:

kifurushi kilichopotea
literally = package that was lost

English often uses a pre-noun adjective, as in the lost package, but Swahili commonly uses a relative-clause structure instead.

How is kilichopotea built?

It can be broken down like this:

• ki- = subject agreement for class 7
• -li- = past tense
• -cho- = relative marker agreeing with class 7
• -potea = verb root meaning get lost / be lost

So kilichopotea literally means something like that which got lost or that was lost.

Why is expressed with a verb-like form instead of a simple adjective?