wa.
to be
Meaning & usage
to be
Wewe ni nani?
to become
Inakuwa baridi.
dummy verb that takes tense marking while the main verb takes aspect marking
nilikuwa ninaandika
stem of -wapo, -wako, or -wamo
stem of -wa na
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Proto-Bantu *-báa (“to become”). The original copula was -li, which survives in relative forms. The form ni was a focus marker, while si appears to have been a general negative marker. In modern standard Swahili, these all came together into one paradigm.
[[Appendix:Swahili_noun_classes#M-wa class|m-wa class_((I/II))]]/[[Appendix:Swahili_noun_classes#M-mi class|m class_((III))]]/[[Appendix:Swahili_noun_classes#U class|u class_((XI))]] inflected form of -a
Where this word comes from
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.