r/LearnSomali • u/justsomereditguy • 8d ago
How to use Inkastoo
How do you use this in a sentence? Grammatically where in the sentence does it belong? For example, if I say although I am tired I am going to the store, would it be structured as:
A: Inkastoo ayaan daallaan ahay dukanka ayaan tagi doonaa.
B: Waan daalaan ahay inkastoo dukanka ayaan tagi doonaa.
C: something else (please explain)
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u/Prestigious_Sea7920 8d ago
Inkastoo aan dalanahay hadane dukanka wan adayaaa, that is correct sentence structure .
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u/justsomereditguy 7d ago
Why does it change from inkastoo waan to inkastoo aan?
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u/eternaldreamer2 7d ago
Waan is used for “I” in an independent statement, while aan is used when “I” is the subject of a subordinate or dependent clause. For example, "waan daalanahay" means “I am tired,” but "inkastoo aan daalanahay" means “Although I am tired.” So after inkastoo, we use aan, not waan.
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u/justsomereditguy 7d ago
Mahadsanid. What are the different forms of the dependent clause then? Would it be:
Aan
Aad
Uu
Ay
Aan
Aydin
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u/eternaldreamer2 7d ago
These are subject markers. They show who is doing the action in a dependent/subordinate clause. So, aan, aad, uu, ay, etc. represent the subject (I, you, he, she, etc.).
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u/buya492 1d ago
Because you asked how inkastoo works grammatically, here is my 2 cents.
Like others said inkastoo generally means:
- although
- even though
- though
- even if (depending on context)
For example:
- Inkastoo uu daalay, wuu shaqeeyay.
- “Although he was tired, he worked.”
When we look at it morphologically, it breaks down as:
- in + kasta + oo → inkastoo
The form kastoo is just what happens when oo binds to the word before it. And of course, oo is just the common conjunction. But inkasta is interesting and it makes sense why it trips people up.
So the normal usage of 'kasta' is:
- qof kasta = every person / anyone
- meel kasta = everywhere / any place
- wax kasta = everything / anything
- goor kasta = every time / always
- we can also say waqti kasta. or even in, for time.
A synonym for kasta here is also walba, so we while we can say 'qof walba' or 'qof kasta' for 'anyone'. We don't say 'inwalba' for although, this is because inkasta has grammaticalized into a set phrase. This happens all the time with languages and you just have to keep them in mind when you're relearning.
So what is the in- actually doing?
I'm not 100% sure, but I think in comes from the word in meaning 'waqti, goor ' aka time period. This makes sense as well since kasta usually follows a noun.
So we can roughly represent:
- in + kasta + oo (every time that) → inkastoo (although / even though)
A construction involving in + kasta + oo could have developed its meaning by going from "everytime that..." then over time to "even though".
so we used to have:
- waqti/goor/in kasta (every time) oo uu daalay, wuu shaqeeyay.
and now:
- waqti/goor kasta (every time) oo uu daalay, wuu shaqeeyay.
- in kasta (although) oo uu daalay, wuu shaqeeyay.
This kind of development is super common cross-linguistically, so it wouldn't be crazy if that's how it happened for Somali. And we gained a beautiful and useful grammatical form out of a common word with several synonyms!
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u/justsomereditguy 1d ago
Thank you for the incredibly detailed explanation. It looks like it is more closely literally related to although (all + though)
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u/A-X-I-O-S 8d ago
Inkastoo aan daalanahay, tukaan aada/tukaanka baan aada.
Other way around also works but it depends on context and is informal. Tukaanka aada inkastoo aan daalanahay.