"She is a second child"
Translation:Yeye ni mwana wa pili
February 9, 2019
3 Comments
Apparently, the male gender continues to be the default gender in Swahili, just as it was in English until recently when we began having to write him/her instead of him. Here, we know it's a girl they're telling about, but the statement places her in a general role - that of a second child. So for child, they use the default term mwana. They could as easily have written mtoto.
March 8, 2019
Good question! I thought that mwana meant 'son' (like in jina la baba, la mwana na roho takatifu, 'in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit': a sentence that will be repeated ad inifitum in later lessons). The subject 'she' seems to rule that out, in this case :)
February 9, 2019
