"Mkasi wangu"

Translation: My pair of scissors

[RinnyJ]

Why is it wangu here, but yangu when used with nails? They are both from the M/Mi class. Is one for the plural and the other the singular?

[RudolfJan]

In English, scissors is plural, in Swahili apparently its singular In Dutch the translation for scissors is "schaar", which is singular as well. You can see it in the form mkasi not mikasi

[juryrigging]

Pretty much spot on.

[pablopublico]

"Mkasi" comes from Arabic "مَقَص‎" (maqaṣ, scissors [from the verb قَصَّ‎ (qaṣṣa, “to cut”), from the root ق ص ص‎ (q-ṣ-ṣ)]), of which Turkish "makas" also comes.

[BGXL5]

The Arabic word for scissors is Miqaṣ not Maqaṣ. مِقَصٌّ

[pablopublico]

I took the information from the Wiktionary:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mkasi

[dom346812]

Why is it "pair of" and not just "my scissors"?

[supCOOP]

Kind of like a pair of pants still = one. We look at pair to determine if it's sing./plural.
"I'd like to try on a pair of pants please."
"Sure, we have several pairs this way."

There are other things in English we say like this... Try to find a few!

[LesleyVari]

Can someone explain the use of wangu vs yangu vs langu (and wake vs yake vs lake, etc.) please?