Chapter 5: Doubling, Negation and the Future
Negation in Dholuo: Ok, Ne Ok and Pok
Make Dholuo sentences negative with ok, talk about the past with ne ok, and say "not yet" with pod ok or pok.
📚 Theory: Negation
To form a negative, the word ‘ok’ is placed before the verb.
| Dholuo | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ok achiemo | I am not eating | |
| ok ang’eyo | I do not know | The verb ‘ng’eyo’ is ‘to know’ |
| ok adwar | I do not want | The verb ‘dwaro’ is to want |
Grammar note: Let’s see how this works in practice.
📚 Theory: Negation
‘ok’ can be contracted with ‘ne’ if the verb took place in the past.
| Dholuo | English |
|---|---|
| ne ok achiemo | I did not eat |
| ne ok ang’eyo | I did not know |
| ne ok adwar | I did not want |
Grammar note: Let’s see how this works in practice.
📚 Theory: Negation
‘ok’ can be contracted with ‘podi’ to indicate a verb that has not yet taken place. The word ‘podi’ means ‘not yet’. The two can be contracted further to form ‘pok’.
| Dholuo | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| pod ok achiemo | I still have not yet eaten | |
| pokachiemo | I still have not yet eaten | This is the short form of ‘pod ok achiemo’ |
| pod ok ang’eyo | I still have not yet known | |
| pokang’eyo | I still have not yet known | The short form |
| pod ok adwar | I still do not want | |
| pokadwar | I still do not want | The short form |
Grammar note: Let’s see how this works in practice.
💬 Conversation Practice
Yambo
Ne pokang’eyo ni sukari rach
I still hadn’t known that sugar is bad.
Akinyi
Sukari ok ber kata matin.
Sugar + not + good + even + a little
Sugar is not good even a little bit.
Yambo
Okakete ei chiemo kendo
I don’t put it + in + food + again
I don’t put it in food anymore
📚 Vocabulary from the Conversation
| Dholuo | English | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sukari | Sugar | Noun | It’s a loan word from Kiswahili |
| Kata | Even | Adverb | As in, ‘even a little bit’ |
| Okakete | I do not put it | Verb | It’s from the root verb ‘keto’ which means ‘to put’. |
| Kendo | Again | Adverb |
🎯 Practice Exercises
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