"Pasipofaa hatutalala"
Translation:If it is not suitable we will not sleep
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Note: The -sipo- particle (negative conditional) was not introduced in the tips & notes.
(Adding to my cheat list)
I wrote "If the place is not suitable we won't sleep." This is an equivalent translation. "Pa" refers to location or place, though "it" suffices if the location is understood. I think using the word "place" is a more precise translation because in English "it" doesn't inherently mean "place" as "pa" does in Swahili.
According to my dictionary - sipo - means : when I am not . nipo - I am there.
Here -sipo- is the negative form of the conditional infix, translating as "if it is not."
Nipo is completely different. Obviously ni- indicates it indicates first person, but here -po is a locative, indicating a definitive location. So the word Nipo means "I am here." If you would make this negative it would be Sipo, "I am not here."
This sentence leads me to a question I had not thought of before in this course: Do they not use puncuation in Swahili? i.e. In English, we would have a comma between the phrase and the main clause. "If it is not suitable, we will not sleep." Does Swahili also use commas, or have we just not gotten to that point yet?
