"I don't eat beef nor goat meat"

Translation: Sili nyama ya ng'ombe wala nyama ya mbuzi

[RinnyJ]

Where is the word of eat in here?

[juryrigging]

Sili. It's the negative form of ninakula. Ni- becomes si-, the tense marker is dropped (only in present tense), and in Bantu verbs the ending, -a, becomes -i.

Kula (to eat) is a monosyllabic verb, and in the positive form of the sentence retains the infinitive ku-, but this is dropped in the negative. This leaves us with sili.

[AGreatUserName]

The way I look at it is that the -i ending is the negative present tense marker - it's just not in the usual position for tense markers.

[juryrigging]

That works for me.

[Rebecca862525]

Not an English native speaker... but isnt it weird that there is nor but no neither in this sentence? Does the negative verb kind of make the neither unnecessary, would it sound strange to say "I don't eat neither beef nor goat"? Same question for the kiswahili version

[vitoreiji]

Is it really necessary to repeat nyama ya here, can't one just say sili nyama ya ng'ombe wala mbuzi?