hakuna matata is one of the very famous kiswahili phrases. Hakuna matata means 'no problem'. It probably was made famous by the Lion King movie..... read more about the phrase on wikipedia.
But, atleast in Tanzania, people rarely use that phrase. Actually if you come to Dar es Salaam and tell someone 'hakuna matata', they will definately know you are not from around here.
The normal way to say no problem is to say hakuna tabu, or hakuna shida, or hamna shida.
The word hakuna is related to the words hapana and hamna. They all negate the presence of something.
Hakuna is normally used to negate something that is far (kule).... kule hakuna nyumba (there are no houses over there).
Hapana is for something nearby (hapa).....hapa hapana maembe (there are no mangoes here)
Hamna is normally for things inside something (humu) humu ndani hamna maji (there is no water inside this place).
Siku njema kila mtu!
2 comments:
Hapa hapana maembe?? Hapa hakuna/hamna maembe is more likely to be
Enjoyed your post! I'm in Dar currently working but also trying to learn Kiswahili.
I saw you stopped writing on this blog, and as I can imagine, you must have limited time on your hands. I found this post very valuable to me. Is it possible to write a quick post, similar to this, that explains the usage of "there is" (ipo, iko).
I'm not sure if uko, yuko, ni also fits into this grammatical structure too. I often hear "uko wapi" but don't understand the grammar behind it.
Thanks!
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