Musiibire Muta? How did you (all) spend the day?

I want to take this opportunity to explain the beauty and complexities of Bantu languages in general, and of my language (Runyancore/Rukiga) in particular. So; the first thing is, of course, beauty: All bantu languages, from Ki- Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania, to Khosa in South Africa, including everything along the way, have the same structure, and are Bantu languages. So, if you get one, you can easily pick up many. Therein, however, lies the difficulty-- getting one!

The first problem is that the subject, object, verb, and time are all in the same word: ex:

I was named by our parish priest with a very nice name

it is: Natukunda. It means God now loves us

N: puts present continuous tense

A: He (God)

tu: (us)

kunda: (loves)

Not so bad, but when someone says Twabashemererwa (We were made happy by you all), it is a bit difficult to catch. The other difficult thing is noun classes: there are several different classes of nouns, which changes the way you say adjectives, pronouns, and even numbers:

Ex: Ebi Ebitookye bibiri biri bibi (These two matooke - boiled banana dish- are bad)

Egi eminekye mibiri giri mibi (These two bananas are bad )

Soooo, One must listen to the ends of words and take a bit of time when constructing sentences.