AfriGIS Languages Initiative
Episode 10
Possessive Nouns
Episode 10
Possessive Nouns
Good Day and welcome to the AfriGIS languages course. My name is Caster Seakamela and I am
Eugene van Deventer and we will be presenting the AfriGIS languages course. The AfriGIS
languages course is a social responsibility and cultural integration initiative by AfriGIS. Please visit
us at www.afrigis.co.za/languages for more information and learning material.
Coming up today is episode ten of the formal course which consists of twenty-six episodes
published on a bi-weekly basis. Today we will spend around five minutes on nouns. A noun is a
word used to name a person, animal, place, thing and abstract idea. Nouns are usually the first
words which small children learn. For example:
Mama
Mom
Dijo
Food
Nkoko
Granny
Seatla
Hand
In this episode nouns will be taught in relation to possessives.
The examples contain a concord “of”, which means belonging to. This concord is derived from the
noun class referring to the possession. It is known as the possessive concord.
Bana ba mosadi
The children of the woman
The children belonging to the woman
or
The woman’s children
Monna wa me
The husband of mine
or
My husband
Molala wa mosetsana
The neck of the girl
or
The girl’s neck
Meriri ya monna
The hair of a man
The man’s hair
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Lenao la Thuso
The leg of Thuso
or
Thuso’s leg
Manao a Thuso
The legs of Thuso
or
Thuso’s legs
Seatla sa Naledi
The hand of Naledi
Naledi’s hand
Nko ya me
The nose of mine
or
My nose
Dinko tsa bana
The noses of the children
The children’s noses
Ditlhako tsa mosadi
The shoes of the woman
The woman’s shoes
Now, how do we know which possessive works well with which noun? You will notice that
noun class one, which starts with “mo”, always begins with “wa”, regardless of who or what
is possessing it.
Nouns have a singular and plural form
We will now identify nouns and do the plural form of the nouns mentioned.
Most of the nouns contained in the examples are names of parts of the human body. To
summarise, Caster will pronounce the noun in singular form first, then in the plural form:
Eye
Leihlo
Mahlo
Mouth
Molomo
Melomo
Ear
Tsebe
Ditsebe
Nose
Nko
Dinko
Hand
Seatla
Diatla
Hair
Moriri
Meriri
Neck
Molala
Melala
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Head
Tlhogo
Ditlhogo
Foot
Lenao
Manao
This concludes the lesson for today. The next episode will be on Linking Words used in Setswana.
Please visit us at www.afrigis.co.za/languages for more exciting activities on learning languages.
Sala Sentle.
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