"The name of the Dutch person"
Translation:Jina la Mholanzi
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I'm not sure which sentence you're referring to (the stem '-ake' means his/hers/its). That would be in one of 3 ways:
- Jina lake la kiholanzi - his/her Dutch name
- Jina lake ni la Mholanzi - his/her name is that of a Dutch person
- Jina lake ni la kiholanzi - his/her name is Dutch
The prefixes change the meaning of the word. The adjective stem '-holanzi' is used to mean 'Dutch' (adj) or 'of Dutch origin', but doesn't stand alone.
- Mholanzi - Dutch person
- kiholanzi - Dutch (adj), of Dutch origin
- Uholanzi - Holland.
The first and 2nd prefixes apply to all nationalities and references to country-specific origins. The last prefix applies to countries whose translations and pronunciations change from English to Swahili. For probably 98% of African countries, the name doesn't change from English to Swahili, so the prefix 'U-' is not used.
M- is singular (Kenyan). Wa- is plural (Kenyans). See this thread: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/32745349
La means of. There are also different forms of La with other letters in front of the -a, and the -a is called the -a of association. For example, you can have ya, cha or vya, all of which mean of, but you use them in different noun classes and depending on if the noun it makes an association with is singular or plural. It's not too hard to understand, but make sure you read the notes at the beginning of each unit to understand how to use them.
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How would you say "Xxx is a Dutch name"? Wouldn't it also be "Xxx ni jina la Mholanzi" (like in the example "Rehema is a Kenyan name" - "Rehema ni jina la Mkenya"). If yes, how do you tell apart "a Keyan name" and "a name of the Kenyan person"?