Welsh to Swahili: whose name, how many names and who is answering
A name question changes its visible grammar
The Open University’s Welsh course asks Beth yw ei enw e? for his name and Beth yw ei henw hi? for her name. The source distinguishes the owner through mutation and a following personal pronoun. In a contact exchange, those details can tell a translator which person’s name is wanted.
The University of Kansas Swahili lesson instead gives Jina lake ni nani? for asking his or her name. Its possessive does not select between a male and female owner. The same question word that appears in a name request should also be understood inside that complete expression, rather than converted independently from the Welsh beth.
A Welsh passage can consequently lose a visible gender distinction in its Swahili pronoun while preserving its actual request. This is acceptable when the person is already clear. If the exchange alternates between two possible owners, however, the translation may need a name or another explicit reference so that the Swahili reader does not have to guess whose details are being requested.
More names does not mean more owners
The Kansas lesson contrasts Jina lake with Majina yake, his or her name versus names. Both can refer to one owner. The changing possessive form responds to the noun being possessed, while the owner remains the same person.
This is useful when translating Welsh registration information. A person’s several names are not several people’s shared name. A target form associated with a plural possessed noun should therefore not lead the translator to change a single Welsh owner into a group. Keep the number of owners separate from the number of details listed.
The same teaching source distinguishes the third-person possessive stems for his or her and their. These encode another dimension from the noun’s singular–plural distinction. Read the source for both dimensions before assembling the Swahili phrase: whose information it is, and whether one name or several names are mentioned.
The Welsh mutation in henw supplies information in its own construction; it is not a miniature version of the Swahili noun-class agreement system. A change at the beginning of a Welsh noun cannot simply be transferred to the beginning of a Swahili possessive. The target noun and its agreement pattern determine the target form.
A reply changes the owner perspective
The Swahili lesson places questions and answers together, with a question about your name answered by a statement about my name. In translating a Welsh exchange, preserve that change of speaker. A correct possessive in the question can become incorrect if copied unchanged into the reply.
This matters when a conversation is pasted as separate lines. The receptionist’s request and the visitor’s answer refer to the same person, but each speaker approaches that person differently. The Swahili possessive should follow the current speaker’s perspective, not simply maintain one form throughout the transcript.
The Welsh course likewise distinguishes requests for a name from broader identity questions. A reply giving only a name can be entirely adequate for the former. Do not expand it into a profession, relationship or biography merely because a question word can also appear in broader identity enquiries. Preserve the specific information requested and the speaker who supplies it.
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