Hoteli iko nyuma ya uwanja wa ndege.

The hotel is behind the airport.

Breakdown of Hoteli iko nyuma ya uwanja wa ndege.

• kuwa: to be
• hoteli: the hotel
• uwanja wa ndege: the airport
• nyuma ya: behind

Questions & Answers about Hoteli iko nyuma ya uwanja wa ndege.

What does iko mean in this sentence?

Iko is the third-person singular present form of the locative verb -ko, meaning “to be located (at/in/on).” Here it tells you where the hotel is: “the hotel is located…”.

Why use iko instead of the copula ni?

Swahili uses ni for identification or classification (e.g. Hii ni hoteli – “This is a hotel”). For location you must use the locative verbs -ko, -po, or -ku. So to express “is (at/in/behind) X,” you need iko.

What part of speech is nyuma, and why is there a ya after it?

Nyuma is actually a noun meaning “back” or “rear.” To say “behind something,” Swahili links nyuma to the object with a genitive connector: nyuma ya X (“behind X”). The ya comes from the noun-class system to join two nouns.

Can we drop ya and say hoteli iko nyuma uwanja wa ndege?

No. Unlike English prepositions, Swahili locative nouns like nyuma require the genitive connector when specifying what they refer to. Omitting ya would be ungrammatical.

What does uwanja wa ndege literally mean, and how does it become “airport”?

Literally uwanja = “field” and wa ndege = “of planes.” So uwanja wa ndege = “field of planes,” which is the standard Swahili term for “airport.”

Why is the connector wa used between uwanja and ndege, and not ya?

Each Swahili noun class has its own genitive connector. Uwanja belongs to noun class 11, whose connector is wa, so you say uwanja wa ndege.

Why isn’t ndege marked with a plural suffix like in English?

Ndege is in noun class 9/10, which has the same form for singular and plural. Context or other words tell you if it means “plane” or “planes.”