jioni
noun · adverb
evening; in the evening.
Names the evening or places an event in the evening. Habari za jioni? is the evening greeting; usiku mwema is the farewell for the day’s end.
Origins
Jioni hides its story in plain sight. An early Swahili dictionary records jio as a coming or approach, with jio la usiku for the approach of night, and gives jioni as the locative form: evening, or in the evening. There is no evidence that jioni was borrowed. Its deeper Proto-Sabaki history is still an open question.
Sources3
Thilo Schadeberg / Haspelmath and Tadmor / Lexibank, World Loanword Database CLDF (Max Planck Institute / Lexibank, 2009), raw/forms.csv row 44525.
Classifies jioni as having no evidence for borrowing, with a borrowed score of 0.0.
A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (1903), scan 144; printed 118.
Records jio as a coming or approach, gives jio la usiku for the approach of night, and describes jioni as the locative form used for evening or in the evening.
Edward Steere, A Handbook of the Swahili Language as Spoken at Zanzibar (1884), 70.
Corroborates jioni as evening or in the evening.
Examples
Ni jioni sasa.
It is evening now.
Nitakupigia simu jioni.
I will call you in the evening.
Nitarudi jioni.
I will return in the evening.
Jioni tunakula pamoja.
We eat together in the evening.
Tulifika jioni.
We arrived in the evening.
Anapenda kutembea jioni.
They like to walk in the evening.
Duka linafungwa jioni.
The shop closes in the evening.
Wageni watakuja jioni.
The guests will come in the evening.
Taa zinawashwa jioni.
The lights are switched on in the evening.
