Vowels

All five vowels have two forms: long and short. The distinction is phonemic but can occur only in certain positions. After two consonants, the latter being a semivowel, all vowels are long. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.

Long vowels in Luganda are very long, more than twice the length of a short vowel. A vowel before a prenasalised consonant, as in Bugáńda 'Buganda' is also lengthened, although it is not as long as a long vowel; laboratory measurements show that the vowel + nasal takes the same length of time to say as a long vowel.^[12] Before a geminate, all vowels are short. A segment such as tugg, where a short vowel is followed by a geminate consonant, is very slightly shorter than tuuk or tung.

Consonants

The table below gives the consonant set of Luganda, grouping voiceless and voiced consonants together in a cell where appropriate, in that order.

Apart from /l~r/, all these consonants can be geminated, even at the start of a word: bbiri /bːíri/ 'two', kitto /cítːo/ 'cold'. The approximants /w/ and /j/ are geminated as /ɡːw/ and /ɟː/: eggwanga /eɡːwáːŋɡa/ 'country'; jjenje /ɟːéːɲɟe/ 'cricket'—from the roots -wanga /wáːŋɡa/ and -yenje /jéːɲɟe/ respectively, with the singular noun prefix e- that doubles the following consonant.

Historically, geminated consonants appear to have arisen when a very close [i] between two consonants dropped out; for example -dduka from *-jiduka 'run'.^[13]

Apart from /l~r/, /w/ and /j/, all consonants can also be prenasalised (prefixed with a nasal stop). This consonant will be [m], [n], [ɲ] [ɱ] or [ŋ] according to the place of articulation of the consonant which follows, and belongs to the same syllable as that consonant.

The liquid /l~r/ becomes /d/ when geminated or prenasalised. For example, ndaba /n̩dába/ 'I see' (from the root -laba with the subject prefix n-); eddagala /edːáɡala/ 'leaf' (from the root -lagala with the singular noun prefix e-, which doubles the following consonant).

A consonant cannot be both geminated and prenasalised. When morphological processes require this, the gemination is dropped and the syllable /zi/ is inserted, which can then be prenasalised. For example, when the prefix en- is added to the adjective -ddugavu 'black' the result is enzirugavu /eːnzíruɡavu/.

The nasals /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ can be syllabic at the start of a word: nkima /ɲ̩címa/ (or [n̩tʃíma]) 'monkey', mpa /m̩pá/ 'I give', nnyinyonnyola /ɲ̩ɲiɲóɲːola/ or /ɲːiɲóɲːola/ 'I explain'. Note that this last example can be analysed in two ways, reflecting the fact that there is no distinction between prenasalisation and gemination when applied to nasal stops.

Tone

Luganda is a tonal language, with three tones: high (á), low (à) and falling (â). There are, however, no syllables in Luganda with rising tone [àá], since these automatically become [áá].^[14][15]

According to one analysis, tones are carried on morae. In Luganda, a short vowel has one mora and a long vowel has two morae. A geminate or prenasalised consonant has one mora. A consonant + semivowel (e.g. gw or ly) also has one mora. A vowel followed by a prenasalised consonant has two morae including the one belonging to the prenasalised consonant. The initial vowel of words like ekitabo 'book' is considered to have one mora, even though such vowels are often pronounced long. No syllable can have more than two morae.

Falling tones can be heard in syllables which have two morae, e.g. those with a long vowel (okukóoká 'to cry'),^[16] those with a short vowel followed by a geminate consonant (okubôbbá 'to throb'),^[16] those with a vowel followed by a prenasalised consonant (Abagândá 'Baganda people'), and those following a consonant plus semivowel (okulwâlá [okulwáalá] 'to fall sick').^[16] They can also be heard on final vowels, e.g. ensî 'country'.

Words in Luganda commonly belong to one of three patterns (other patterns are less common): (a) toneless, e.g. ekitabo 'book'; (b) with one high tone, e.g. ekibúga 'city'; (c) with two high tones, e.g. Kámpalá which link together to make HHH, i.e. [Kámpálá] or [Kámpálâ]. (At the end of a sentence, the final tone becomes a falling tone, i.e. [Kámpálâ], but in other contexts, e.g. when the word is used as the subject of a sentence, it remains high: Kámpálá kibúga 'Kampala is a city'.)^[17]

Although words like ekitabo are theoretically toneless, they are generally subject to a tone-raising rule whereby all but the first mora acquire a high tone. Thus ekitabo 'book' is pronounced [e:kítábó] and ssomero 'school' is pronounced [ssóméró] (where the long consonant /ss/ counts as the first mora).^[18] These tones added to toneless words are called 'phrasal tones'. The tone-raising rule also applies to the toneless syllables at the end of words like eddwâliro [eddwáalíró] 'hospital' and túgenda [túgeendá] 'we are going', provided that there is at least one low-toned mora after the lexical tone. When this happens, the high tones which follow the low tone are slightly lower than the one which precedes it.

However, there are certain contexts, such as when a toneless word is used as the subject of a sentence or before a numeral, when this tone-raising rule does not apply: Masindi kibúga 'Masindi is a city'; ebitabo kkúmi 'ten books'.^[19]

In a sentence, the lexical tones (that is, the high tones of individual words) tend to fall gradually in a series of steps from high to low. For example, in the sentence kye kibúga ekikúlu mu Ugáńda 'it is the chief city in Uganda', the lexical high tones of the syllables bú, kú and gá stand out and gradually descend in pitch, the toneless syllables in between being lower.^[20] This phenomenon is called 'downdrift'.

However, there are certain types of phrase, notably those in the form 'noun + of + noun', or 'verb + location', where downdrift does not occur, and instead all the syllables in between the two lexical high tones link together into a 'plateau', in which all the vowels have tones of equal height, for example mu maséréngétá gá Úgáńda 'in the south of Uganda' or kírí mú Úgáńda 'it is in Uganda'.^[21] Plateauing also occurs within a word, as in Kámpálâ (see above).

A plateau cannot be formed between a lexical tone and a phrasal tone; so in the sentence kíri mu Bunyóró 'it is in Bunyoro' there is downdrift, since the tones of Bunyóró are phrasal. But a phrasal tone can and frequently does form a plateau with a following high tone of either sort. So in abántú mú Úgáńda 'people in Uganda', there is a plateau from the phrasal tone of tú to the lexical tone of gá, and in túgendá mú lúgúúdó 'we are going into the street', there is a plateau from the phrasal tone of ndá to the phrasal tone of dó.^[22] Again there are certain exceptions; for example, there is no plateau before the words ono 'this' or bonnâ 'all': muntú onó 'this person', abántú bonnâ 'all the people'.^[23]

Prefixes sometimes change the tones in a word. For example, Baganda [baɡáánda] 'they are Baganda' has LHHL, but adding the initial vowel a- [a] gives Abaganda [abaɡáandá] 'Baganda people' with LLHLH. (Here, long vowels are transcribed double ([aa]) rather than with the length mark ([aː]), to allow for tones to be written on each mora.)

Different verb tenses have different tonal patterns. The tones of verbs are made more complicated by the fact that some verbs have a high tone on the first syllable of the root, while others do not, and also by the fact that the sequence HH generally becomes HL by a rule called Meeussen's rule. Thus asóma means 'he reads', but when the toneless prefix a- 'he/she' is replaced by the high-toned prefix bá- 'they', instead of básóma it becomes básomá 'they read'.^[24] The tones of verbs in relative clauses and in negative sentences differ from those in ordinary positive sentences and the addition of an object-marker such as mu 'him' adds further complications.

In addition to lexical tones, phrasal tones, and the tonal patterns of tenses, there are also intonational tones in Luganda, for example, tones of questions. One rather unexpected phenomenon for English speakers is that if a yes–no question ends in a toneless word, instead of a rise, there is a sharp drop in pitch, e.g. lúnó lúgúúdò? 'is this a road?'.^[25]

Phonotactics

Syllables can take any of the following forms:

• V (only as the first syllable of a word)
• CV
• GV
• NCV
• CSV
• GSV
• NCSV

where V = vowel, C = single consonant (including nasals and semivowels but excluding geminates), G = geminate consonant, N = nasal stop, S = semivowel

These forms are subject to certain phonotactic restrictions:

• Two vowels may not appear adjacent to one another. When morphological or grammatical rules cause two vowels to meet, the first vowel is elided or reduced to a semivowel and the second is lengthened if possible.
• A vowel following a consonant–semivowel combination (except [ɡːw]) is always long, except at the end of a word. After [ɡːw] a vowel can be either long or short. At the end of a word, all vowels are pronounced short.^[26]
• A vowel followed by a nasal–plosive combination is always long.
• A vowel followed by a geminate is always short. This rule takes precedence over all the above rules.
• The velar plosives /k/ and /ɡ/ may not appear before the vowel [i] or the semivowel [j]. In this position they become the corresponding postalveolar affricates [tʃ] and [dʒ] respectively.
• The consonants /j/, /w/ and /l~r/ cannot be geminated or prenasalised.
• A consonant cannot be both geminated and prenasalised.

The net effect of this is that all Luganda words follow the general pattern of alternating consonant clusters and vowels, beginning with either but always ending in a vowel:

• (V)XVXV...XV

where V = vowel, X = consonant cluster, (V) = optional vowel

This is reflected in the syllabification rule that in writing, words are always hyphenated after a vowel (when breaking a word over two lines). For example, Emmotoka yange ezze 'My car has arrived' would be split into syllables as E‧mmo‧to‧ka ya‧nge e‧zze.

Variant pronunciations

The palatal plosives /c/ and /ɟ/ may be realised with some affrication — either as [cç] and [ɟʝ] or as postalveolars /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively.

In speech, word-final vowels are often elided in these conditioning environments:

• Word-final /u/ can be silent after /f/, /fː/, /v/ or /vː/
• Word-final /i/ can be silent after /c/, /cː/, /ɟ/ or /ɟː/

For example, ekiddugavu /ecídːuɡavu/ 'black' may be pronounced [ecídːuɡavʷu] or [ecídːuɡavʷ]. Similarly lwaki /lwáːci/ 'why' may be pronounced [lwáːci], [lwáːc] or [lwáːtʃ].

Long vowels before prenasalised fricatives (that is, before /nf/, /nv/, /ns/ or /nz/) may be nasalised, and the nasal is then often elided. Additionally, when not elided (for example phrase-initially), the /n/ usually becomes a labiodental in /nf/, /nv/. For example:

• nfa /nfa/ 'I'm dying' is pronounced [ɱfʷa]
• musanvu /musáːnvu/ 'seven' may be pronounced [musáːɱvʷu], [musãːɱvʷu], [musãːvʷu] or [musãːɱvʷ]
• tonsaba /toːnsába/ 'don't ask me' may be pronounced [toːnsába], [tõːsába] or [tõːnsába]

The liquid /l~r/ has two allophones [l] and [r], conditioned by the preceding vowel. It is usually realised as a tap or flap [ɾ] after a front unrounded vowel (i.e. after /e/, /eː/, /i/ or /iː/), and as a lateral approximant [l] elsewhere. However, there is considerable variation in this, and using one allophone instead of the other causes no ambiguity. So lwaki /lwáːci/ 'why' may also be pronounced [rwáːci], [ɾwáːci], [ɹwáːtʃi] etc.

Alternative analysis

Treating the geminate and prenasalised consonants as separate phonemes yields the expanded consonant set below:

This simplifies the phonotactic rules so that all syllables are of one of three forms:

• V (only as the first syllable of a word)
• CV
• CSV

where V = vowel, C = consonant (including geminate and prenasalised consonants), N = nasal stop, S = semivowel (i.e. either /j/ or /w/).

Vowel length is then only distinctive before simple consonants (i.e. simple plosives, simple fricatives, simple nasals, approximants and liquids)—not before geminate or nasalised consonants or at the end of a word.

Vowels

The five vowels in Luganda are spelt with the same letters as in many other languages (for example Spanish):

• a /a/
• e /e/
• i /i/
• o /o/
• u /u/

As mentioned above, the distinction between long and short vowels is phonemic and is therefore represented in the alphabet. Long vowels are written as double (when length cannot be inferred from the context) and short vowels are written single. For example:

• bana /bana/ 'four (e.g. people)' vs baana /baːna/ 'children'
• sera /sela/ 'dance' vs seera /seːla/ 'overcharge'
• sira /sila/ 'mingle' vs siira /siːla/ 'walk slowly'
• kola /kola/ 'do' vs koola /koːla/ '(to) weed'
• tuma /tuma/ 'send' vs tuuma /tuːma/ '(to) name'

In certain contexts, phonotactic constraints mean that a vowel must be long, and in these cases it is not written double:

• A vowel followed by a prenasalised consonant
• A vowel that comes after a consonant–semivowel combination—apart from ggw which can be thought of as a geminated w, and ggy which can be thought of as a geminated y (although the latter is less common as this combination is more often spelt jj)

For example:

• ekyuma /ecúːma/ 'metal'
• ŋŋenda /ŋ̍ŋéːnda/ 'I go'

But

• eggwolezo /eɡːwólezo/ 'court house'
• eggwoolezo /eɡːwóːlezo/ 'customs office'

Vowels at the start or end of the word are not written double, even if they are long. The only exception to this (apart from all-vowel interjections such as eee and uu) is yee 'yes'.

Consonants

With the exception of ny [ɲ], each consonant sound in Luganda corresponds to a single letter. The ny combination is treated as a single letter and therefore does not have any effect on vowel length (see the previous subsection).

The following letters are pronounced approximately as in English:

• b /b/ (sometimes softened to /β/)^[27]
• d /d/
• f /f/ ("'f' and 'v' are pronounced with the lips slightly pouted")^[28]
• l /l/
• m /m/
• n /n/
• p /p/
• s /s/
• t /t/
• v /v/
• w /w/ ("'w' differs from the English 'w' being much softer")^[28]
• y /j/
• z /z/

A few letters have unusual values:

• c /c/
• j /ɟ/
• ny /ɲ/
• ŋ /ŋ/

The letters l and r represent the same sound in Luganda—/l/—but the orthography requires r after e or i, and l elsewhere:

• alinda /alíːnda/ 'she's waiting'
• akirinda /acilíːnda/ (or [aciríːnda]) 'she's waiting for it'

There are also two letters whose pronunciation depends on the following letter:

• k is pronounced [c] (or [tʃ]) before i or y, [k] elsewhere
• g is pronounced [ɟ] (or [dʒ]) before i or y, [ɡ] elsewhere

Compare this to the pronunciation of c and g in many Romance languages. As in the Romance languages the 'softening letter' (in Italian i, in French e, in Luganda y) is not itself pronounced, although in Luganda it does have the effect of lengthening the following vowel (see the previous subsection).

Finally the sounds /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are spelt n before another consonant with the same place of articulation (in other words, before other palatals and velars respectively) rather than ny and ŋ:

• The combinations /ɲ̩ɲ/ and /ɲː/ are spelt nny
• The combination /ɲj/ is spelt nÿ (the diaeresis shows that the y is a separate letter rather than part of the ny digraph, and the /ɲ/ is spelt n before y as in the above rule; in practice this combination is very rare)
• /ŋ/ is spelt n before k or g (but not before another ŋ)
• /ɲ/ is spelt n before c or j, or before a soft k or g

Alphabet

The standard Luganda alphabet is composed of twenty-four letters:

• 18 consonants: b, p, v, f, m, d, t, l, r, n, z, s, j, c, g, k, ny, ŋ
• 5 vowels: a, e, i, o, u
• 2 semi-vowels: w, y

Since the last consonant ŋ does not appear on standard typewriters or computer keyboards, it is often replaced by the combination ng' (including the apostrophe). In some non-standard orthographies, the apostrophe is not used, which can lead to confusion with the letter combination ng, which is different from ŋ.

In addition, the letter combination ny is treated as a unique consonant. When the letters n and y appear next to each other, they are written as nÿ, with the diaeresis mark to distinguish this combination from ny.

Other letters (h, q, x) are not used in the alphabet, but are often used to write loanwords from other languages. Most such loanwords have standardised spellings consistent with Luganda orthography (and therefore not using these letters), but these spelling are not often used, particularly for English words.

The full alphabet, including both standard Luganda letters and those used only for loanwords, is as follows:

• Aa, a
• Bb, bba
• Cc, cca
• Dd, dda
• Ee, e
• Ff, ffa
• Gg, gga
• (Hh, ha ^{[decimal 1]})
• Ii, yi
• Jj, jja
• Kk, kka
• Ll, la
• Mm, mma
• Nn, nna
• (NY Ny ny, nnya or nna-ya) ^{[decimal 2]}
• Ŋŋ, ŋŋa
• Oo, o
• Pp, ppa
• (Qq ^{[decimal 1]})
• Rr, eri
• Ss, ssa
• Tt, tta
• Uu, wu
• Vv, vva
• Ww, wa
• (Xx ^{[decimal 1]})
• Yy, ya
• Zz, zza

Noun classes

NB: In the study of Bantu languages the term noun class is often used to refer to what is called gender in comparative linguistics and in the study of certain other languages. Hereafter, both terms may be used.

There is some disagreement as to how to count Luganda's noun classes. Some authorities count singular and plural forms as two separate noun classes, but others treat the singular-plural pairs as genders. By the former method, there are 17 classes, and by the latter there are 10 since there are two pairs of classes with identical plurals and one class with no singular-plural distinction. The latter method is consistent with the study of non-Bantu languages. Applying the method to Luganda gives ten noun classes, nine of which have separate singular and plural forms. This is the usual way to discuss Luganda but not when discussing Bantu languages, generally. In addition, Luganda has four locative classes, e, ku, mu, and wa.

The following table shows how the ten traditional classes of Luganda map onto the Proto-Bantu noun classes:

As the table shows, Proto-Bantu's polyplural classes (6 and 10) are treated as separate in this article.

As is the case with most languages, the distribution of nouns among the classes is essentially arbitrary, but there are some loose patterns:

• Class I contains mainly people, although some inanimate nouns can be found in this class: musajja 'man', kaawa 'coffee'
• Class II contains all sorts of nouns but most of the concrete nouns in Class II are long or cylindrical. Most trees fall into this class: muti 'tree'
• Class III also contains many different types of concepts but most animals fall into this class: embwa 'dog'
• Class IV contains inanimate objects and is the class used for the impersonal 'it': ekitabo 'book'
• Class V contains mainly (but not exclusively) large things and liquids, and can also be used to create augmentatives: ebbeere 'breast', lintu 'giant' (from muntu 'person')
• Class VI contains mainly small things and can be used to create diminutives, adjectival abstract nouns and (in the plural) negative verbal nouns and countries: kabwa 'puppy' (from embwa 'dog'), mkanafu 'laziness' (from munafu 'lazy'), bukola 'inaction, not to do' (from kukola 'to do, act'), Bungereza 'Britain, England' (from Mungereza 'British, English person')
• Class VII contains many different things including the names of most languages: Oluganda 'Ganda language', Oluzungu 'English language' (from muzungu 'European, white person')
• Class VIII is rarely used but can be used to create pejorative forms: gubwa 'mutt' (from embwa 'dog')
• Class IX is mainly used for infinitives or affirmative verbal nouns: kukola 'action, to do' (from the verb kola 'do, act')
• Class X, which has no singular–plural distinction, is used for mass nouns, usually in the sense of 'a drop' or 'precious little': tuzzi 'drop of water' (from mazzi 'water'), tubaka 'sleep'

The class that a noun belongs to can usually be determined by its prefix:

• Class I: singular (o)mu-, plural (a)ba-
• Class II: singular (o)mu-, plural (e)mi-
• Class III: singular (e)n-, plural (e)n-
• Class IV: singular (e)ki-, plural (e)bi-
• Class V: singular li-, eri-, plural (a)ma-
• Class VI: singular (a)ka-, plural (o)bu-
• Class VII: singular (o)lu-, plural (e)n-
• Class VIII: singular (o)gu-, plural (a)ga-
• Class IX: singular (o)ku-, plural (a)ma-
• Class X: (o)tu-

There are a few cases where prefixes overlap: the singulars of Classes I and II (both beginning with mu-); the singular of Class III and plurals of Classes III and VII (all beginning with n-); and the plurals of Classes V and IX (both ma-). Genuine ambiguity, however, is rare, since even where the noun prefixes are the same, the other prefixes are often different. For example, there can be no confusion between omuntu (Class I) 'person' and omuntu (Class II) 'seat' in the sentences Omuntu ali wano 'The person is here' and Omuntu guli wano 'The seat is here' because the verb prefixes a- (Class I) and gu- (Class II) are different, even if the noun prefixes are the same. The same is true with the singular and plural of Class III: Embwa erya 'The dog is eating' vs Embwa zirya 'The dogs are eating' (compare English The sheep is eating vs The sheep are eating where the noun is invariant but the verb distinguishes singular from plural).

In fact, the plurals of Classes III and VII, and those of Classes V and IX, are identical in all their prefixes (noun, verb, adjective etc.).

Class V uses its noun prefixes somewhat differently from the other classes. The singular noun prefix, eri-, is often reduced to e- with an accompanying doubling of the stem's initial consonant. This happens when the stem begins with a single plosive, or a single nasal stop followed by a long vowel, a nasal stop and then a plosive (called a nasalised stem). For example:

• eggi 'egg'; plural amagi (from stem gi)
• eggwanga 'country'; plural amawanga (from nasalised stem wanga—the w becomes ggw when doubled)
• ejjinja 'cricket'; plural amayinja (from nasalised stem yinja—the y becomes jj when doubled)

Other stems use the full prefix:

• erinnya 'name'; plural amannya (from stem nnya)
• eriiso 'eye'; plural amaaso (from stem yiso)
• eryanda 'battery'; plural amanda (from stem anda)

There are also some nouns that have no prefix. Their genders must simply be learnt by rote:

• Class I: ssebo 'gentleman, sir', nnyabo 'madam', Katonda 'god', kabaka 'king', kyayi (or 'caayi) 'tea', kaawa 'coffee'
• Class III: kkapa 'cat', gomesi 'gomesi (traditional East African women's formal dress)'

Adjectives, verbs, certain adverbs, the possessive and a few special forms of conjunctions are inflected to agree with nouns in Luganda.

Nouns

Nouns are inflected for number and state.

Number is indicated by replacing the singular prefix with the plural prefix. For example, omusajja 'man', abasajja 'men'; ekisanirizo 'comb', ebisanirizo 'combs'. All word classes agree with nouns in number and class.

State is similar to case but applies to verbs and other parts of speech as well as nouns, pronouns and adjectives. There are two states in Luganda, which may be called the base state and the topic state. The base state is unmarked and the topic state is indicated by the presence of the initial vowel.

The topic state is used for nouns in the following conditions:

• Subject of a sentence
• Object of an affirmative verb (other than the verb 'to be')

The base state is used for the following conditions:

• Object of a negative verb
• Object of a preposition
• Noun predicate (whether or not there is an explicit copula or verb 'to be')

Pronouns

Luganda has a closed set of pronouns.

Adjectives

As in other Niger–Congo languages (as well as most Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages), adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they qualify. For example:

• omuwala omulungi 'beautiful girl' (Class I, singular)
• abawala abalungi 'beautiful girls' (Class I, plural)
• omuti omulungi 'beautiful tree' (Class II, singular)
• emiti emirungi 'beautiful trees' (Class II, plural)
• emmotoka ennungi 'beautiful/good car(s)' (Class V, singular/plural)

In these examples the adjective -lungi changes its prefix according to the gender (Class I or II) and number (singular or plural) of the noun it is qualifying (compare Italian bella ragazza, belle ragazze, bel ragazzo, bei ragazzi). In some cases the prefix causes the initial l of the stem to change to n or r.

Attributive adjectives agree in state with the noun they qualify, but predicative adjectives never take the initial vowel. Similarly, the subject relative is formed by adding the initial vowel to the verb (because a main verb is a predicate).

Adverbs

True adverbs in the grammatical sense are far rarer in Luganda than in, say, English, being mostly translated by other parts of speech—for example adjectives or particles. When the adverb is qualifying a verb, it is usually translated by an adjective, which then agrees with the subject of the verb. For example:

• Ankonjera bubi 'She slanders me badly'
• Bankonjera bubi 'They slander me badly'

Here, 'badly' is translated with the adjective -bi 'bad, ugly', which is declined to agree with the subject.

Other concepts can be translated by invariant particles. for example the intensifying particle nnyo is attached to an adjective or verb to mean 'very', 'a lot'. For example: Lukwago anywa nnyo 'Lukwago drinks a lot'.

There are also two groups of true adverb in Luganda, both of which agree with the verbal subject or qualified noun (not just in gender and number but also in person), but which are inflected differently. The first group is conjugated in the same way as verbs and contains only a few words: tya 'how', ti 'like this', tyo 'like that':

• Njogera bwe nti 'I speak like this'
• Abasiraamu basaba bwebati 'Muslims pray like this'
• Enkima erya bweti 'The monkey eats like this'
• Enkima zirya bweziti 'Monkeys eat like this'

The adverb ti 'like this' (the last word in each of the above sentences) is conjugated as a verb to agree with the subject of the sentence in gender, number and person.

The second group takes a different set of prefixes, based on the pronouns. Adverbs in this group include -nna 'all' (or, with the singular, 'any'), -kka 'only', -mbi, -mbiriri 'both' and -nsatule 'all three':

• Nkola nzekka 'I work alone'
• Nzekka nze nkola 'Only I work'
• Ggwe wekka ggwe okola 'Only you work'
• Nze nzekka nze ndigula emmotoka 'Only I will buy the car'
• Ndigula mmotoka yokka 'I will only buy the car'

Note how, in the last two examples, the adverb -kka agrees with whichever antecedent it is qualifying — either the implicit nze 'I' or the explicit emmotoka 'the car'.

Note also, in the first two examples, how the placement of nzekka before or after the verb makes the difference between 'only' (when the adverb qualifies and agrees with the subject—the implicit nze 'I') and 'alone' (when it qualifies the verb nkola 'I work' but agrees with the subject).

Possessive

The possessive in Luganda is indicated with a different particle for each singular and plural noun class (according to the possessed noun). An alternative way of thinking about the Luganda possessive is as a single word whose initial consonant cluster is altered to agree with the possessed noun in class and number.

Depending on the possessed noun, the possessive takes one of the following forms:

• Singular wa, plural ba (Class I)
• Singular gwa, plural gya (Class II)
• Singular ya, plural za (Class III)
• Singular kya, plural bya (Class IV)
• Singular lya, plural ga (Class V)
• Singular ka, plural bwa (Class VI)
• Singular lwa, plural za (Class VII)
• Singular gwa, plural ga (Class VIII)
• Singular kwa, plural ga (Class IX)
• Twa (Class X)

If the possessor is a personal pronoun, the separate possessive form is not used. Instead, the following personal possessives are used:

• Wange 'my', wo 'your (singular possessor)', we 'his, her'; waffe 'our', wammwe 'your (plural possessor)', waabwe 'their' (Class I, singular possessed noun)
• Bange 'my', bo 'your (singular possessor)', be 'his, her'; baffe 'our', bammwe 'your (plural possessor)', baabwe 'their' (Class I, plural possessed noun)
• Gwange 'my', gwo 'your (singular possessor)', gwe 'his, her'; gwaffe 'our', gwammwe 'your (plural possessor)', gwabwe 'their' (Class II, singular possessed noun)
• Gyange 'my', gyo 'your (singular possessor)', gye 'his, her'; gyaffe 'our', gyammwe 'your (plural possessor)' gyabwe 'their' (Class II, plural possessed noun)
• Yange 'my', yo 'your', etc. (Class III, singular possessed noun)
• Etc.

There are also a few nouns that take special forms when used with a possessive:

• Kitange 'my father', kitaawo 'your (singular) father', kitaawe 'his/her father'

Verbs

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)