usiku
noun · adverb
night.
Names the night or places an event at night. In usiku mwema, it is part of the farewell “good night.”
Origins
Siku is the day and usiku is the night, a pair Swahili keeps close. An older Swahili handbook sets them side by side and notes that usiku normally stays the same rather than taking a plural. Usiku belongs to the language’s older Bantu vocabulary, with no evidence that it was borrowed.
Sources4
Thilo Schadeberg / Haspelmath and Tadmor / Lexibank, World Loanword Database CLDF (Max Planck Institute / Lexibank, 2009), cldf/forms.csv rows 43932 and 64399.
Classifies usiku as earlier Bantu vocabulary with no evidence of borrowing.
Yvonne Bastin, André Coupez, and Michael Mann, Digo E73 comparative wordlist (Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa, 1999), PDF 9.
Records Digo usiku for night, independently preserving the same form in another Sabaki language.
Edgar C. Polome, Swahili Language Handbook (Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1967), PDF 119; printed 102.
Contrasts usiku “night” with siku “day” and records usiku without a plural.
Edward Steere, A Handbook of the Swahili Language as Spoken at Zanzibar (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884), 472.
Defines usiku as night and records usiku kucha for all night.
Examples
Ni usiku sasa.
It is night now.
Nitarudi usiku.
I will return at night.
Duka linafungwa usiku.
The shop closes at night.
Nilisoma usiku.
I studied at night.
Usiku kuna utulivu.
It is quiet at night.
Walisafiri usiku.
They travelled at night.
Taa zinawaka usiku.
The lights are on at night.
Tunafunga mlango usiku.
We lock the door at night.
Hoteli iko wazi usiku.
The hotel is open at night.
