Noms des plantes en swahili

Introduction

Swahili or Kiswahili is basically a Bantu language originating in coastal East Africa. It includes many loanwords from Arabic and Persian, and more recently from English. For a description, see Wikipedia.

Nominal classes

Assessing plant names in Swahili is a difficult task, because names belong to nominal classes which are distinguished by prefixes. The consequence is that the place in the alphabetical order of a dictionary depends on the choice of the lexicographer.

In Swahili, most plant names (trees or not) bear a name in the nominal class m/mi, whereas the fruit or product bears a name of the same radical, but in dans class ø/ma. Anyway, the singular form has to be restituted in order to find the name in a dictionary.

	plant name		fruit or product name
	singular: m-	plural: mi-	singular: ø	plural: ma-
almond	mlozi	milozi	lozi	malozi
apple	mtofaa	mitofaa	tofaa	matofaa
aubergine	mbiringani	mibiringani	biringani	mabiringani
Bambara groundnut	mnjugumawe	minjugumawe	njugu, njugumawe
banana	mgomba	migomba	gomba1	magomba
baobab	mbuyu	mibuyu	buyu2	mabuyu
cacao	mkakao	mikakao	kakao
cloves	mkarafuu	mikarafuu	karafuu
coconut	mnazi	minazi	nazi
guava	mpera	mipera	pera	mapera
kapok	msufi	misufi	sufi
lemon	mlimau	milimau	limau	malimau
lime	mndimu, mdimu	mindimu	ndimu
maize	mhindi	mihindi	hindi3	mahindi3
mango	mwembe4	miembe	embe	maembe
nutmeg5	mkungumanga	mikungumanga	kungumanga	makungumanga
orange	mchungwa	michungwa	chungwa	machungwa
papaya	mpapai	mipapai	papai	mapapai
peanut	mnjugunyasa	minjugunyasa	njugu, karanga
Phaseolus vulgaris	mharagwe	miharagwe	haragwe	maharagwe
pineapple	mnanasi	minanasi	nanasi	mananasi
pumpkin	mboga	miboga	boga	maboga
ridged gourd	mdodoki	midodoki	dodoki
tea	mchai	michai	chai
Terminalia almond	mkungu	mikungu	kungu	makungu
flower			ua	maua
fruit			tunda	matunda
leaf			jani	majani
plant	mmea	mimea
spiny tree	mwiba4	miiba
tree	mti	miti

(1) designates the banana fiber. The fruit is ndizi.

(2) fruit of the baobab. Other derivatives are kibuyu / vibuyu (diminutive class), baobab calabash used to gather water; ubuyu pulp used as a condiment

(3) hindi is "a grain of maize". mahindi is "maize" as an uncountable material (e.g. in the sentence "I eat maize"). Other words designating uncountable material are in this class,and in the plural (mafuta, oil; maji, water; maziwa, milk).

(4) m- becomes mw- before a vowel.

(5) manga qualifies things of Arabic origin. It originally points to the Mascate area, in the Persian gulf.

Other names designate both plant and fruit (or product): tomato nyanya; tabac tumbako; sweet potato kiazi / viazi, potato kiazi (cha kizungu) / viazi (cha kizungu); cabbage kobishi; cotton pamba.