Watu wanataka kujitawala.

A useful breakdown is:

• Watu = people
• wanataka = they want
• kujitawala = to govern themselves / to rule themselves / to be self-governing

More literally, the structure is:

• wa- = subject marker for they
• -na- = present tense marker
• -taka = want
• ku- = infinitive marker, like to
• ji- = reflexive marker, self
• -tawala = rule / govern

So the sentence is built very regularly.

Because wa- is the subject marker that agrees with watu.

In Swahili, verbs usually show agreement with the subject. Since watu means people and belongs to the plural human noun class, the verb takes wa-.

So:

• watu wa-nataka = people they-want

If the subject were singular, you would change the agreement:

• Mtu anataka kujitawala. = A person wants to govern himself/herself.

Here, a- is the singular human subject marker.

-na- is the present tense marker.

So:

• wa-taka would not be the normal everyday present form
• wa-na-taka means they want / they are wanting

In many beginner translations, -na- is treated as the normal present tense marker.

Because Swahili verbs are built by attaching prefixes directly to the verb stem.

So kujitawala is not really a random long word; it is a verb made of parts:

• ku- = infinitive to
• ji- = self
• -tawala = rule/govern

Swahili often packs this kind of information into one word, where English would use several words.

ji- is the reflexive marker. It means that the action comes back to the subject: oneself / themselves / self.

Compare:

• kutawala = to rule / to govern
• kujitawala = to rule oneself / to govern oneself / to be self-governing

So in this sentence, the people are not just ruling something else; they want to rule themselves.

Because ku- already does that job.

In Swahili, the infinitive form of a verb usually begins with ku-, and that corresponds to English to + verb.

Examples:

• kutaka = to want
• kutawala = to govern
• kujitawala = to govern oneself

So after wanataka, Swahili simply uses the infinitive form directly:

• wanataka kujitawala = they want to govern themselves

It can mean slightly different things depending on context.

Common possibilities include:

• to govern oneself
• to be self-ruled
• to be autonomous
• to control oneself

In a political or social context, it often suggests self-rule, autonomy, or independence. In a personal context, it could also suggest self-control or self-mastery.

So the exact nuance depends on the larger context, even though the basic grammar stays the same.

You would say:

Mtu anataka kujitawala.

Changes:

• watu → mtu (people → person)
• wa- → a- on the verb to match the singular subject

So:

• Mtu anataka kujitawala. = A person wants to govern himself/herself.

A common negative form is:

Watu hawataki kujitawala.

This means People do not want to govern themselves.

Here:

• hawa- is the negative subject form for plural humans
• -taki is the negative form of -taka in this pattern

So:

• wanataka = they want
• hawataki = they do not want

It can mean either, depending on context.

Swahili does not have articles like a, an, and the in the same way English does. So watu can be understood as:

• people
• the people
• sometimes even some people, depending on context

That means you often need the surrounding context to know the most natural English translation.