Introduction: In this first lesson we study "the", the most frequent word in English. "The" is the definite article. It stands in front of a noun and tells the listener: "you know which one I mean". English speakers use it all the time: "the house", "the village", "the bread", "the road".
Kabyle has no article of this kind. The bare noun axxam can mean "a house", "the house", "houses" or "the houses", and the situation shows which is meant: Anda yella weɣrum? is "Where is the bread?" (the bread we both know of), with no word for "the". When Kabyle wants to say "the one we both know, the one in question", it attaches the little word -nni to the end of the noun, with a hyphen: axxam-nni, aselmad-nni, taddart-nni, aɣrum-nni. When it wants to say "this one, here", it attaches -agi (axxam-agi, "this house"); -nni is the nearest Kabyle has to English "the". But -nni is not obligatory, and a Kabyle speaker often leaves it out where English must say "the": Ssneɣ abrid is "I know the road", and Yekcem-d uselmad is "The teacher came in", and neither has -nni. So Kabyle can do what English does with "a" and "the": the first time a thing is mentioned it is bare (adlis, "a book"), and afterwards it can take -nni (adlis-nni, "the book"). Notice that -nni stands after the noun, never before it, and is joined to it with a hyphen.
- axxam-nni (the house), aselmad-nni (the teacher), taddart-nni (the village) - aɣrum-nni (the bread), adlis-nni (the book), idlisen-nni (the books) - taqcict-nni (the girl), igerdan-nni (the children), temdint-nni (the town)
English "the" differs from -nni in two ways. First, it never changes: the book, the books, the girl, the children. Kabyle makes its plural by changing the noun (adlis, idlisen; the book, the books) and then adds the same -nni, but the noun itself also changes its form according to its place in the sentence (the free state and the construct state, explained in Part D); English has one word for every noun, singular or plural, and the noun does not change for position. Second, "the" does not point: -nni can mean "that" as well as "the" (axxam-nni can also be "that house"), but English "the house" is not "that house". It says only that the speaker and the listener both know which house. English also uses "the" far more often than Kabyle uses -nni. In most places where English writes "the", Kabyle may write nothing at all: Yekcem-d uselmad is "The teacher came in" with the bare noun. For this reason Part A below shows "-" against "the" wherever nothing in the Kabyle sentence corresponds to it, and shows -nni joined to its noun (axxam-nni) where it does.
English uses "the":
- when the thing has been mentioned before: "a book" the first time, "the book" after that - when there is only one of it: the sun, the moon, the world - when the situation shows which one: "Give me the bread!" (the bread in front of us) - when the rest of the sentence shows which one: "the people of Kabylie", "the girl who is reading" - before superlatives and ordinal numbers: the first lesson, the biggest village - before the names of rivers and mountain ranges: the Soummam, the Djurdjura
English does not use "the" before the names of people, before most names of countries, regions and towns (Algeria, Kabylie, Tizi Ouzou, Béjaïa), or before the names of languages (English, Kabyle, French). Notice the difference: "the Soummam" is the river; "Béjaïa" is the town, and a name of this kind takes no "the".
Etymology: "the" comes from an Old English demonstrative (se, sēo, þæt, later þe) that meant something like "that one". Over the centuries the word grew weak and became an article. So English "the" began its life as a demonstrative, just like Kabyle -nni and -agi, and the two still do some of the same work.
"The" has a partner: the indefinite article "a" or "an" ("a book", "an apple"), which introduces something new. Kabyle needs no word for it: the bare noun does the work, adlis for "a book". "A" and "an" have their own lesson; in this lesson they appear only in the examples.
What does "the" mean in Kabyle? There is no single word. Most of the time "the" is not translated at all, because the bare Kabyle noun already carries its meaning: "the road" = abrid. When "the" points to something already mentioned or known, the nearest Kabyle word is -nni, joined to the noun: adlis-nni, aɣrum-nni.
Key Takeaways:
- "The" never changes: the book, the books, the girl, the children. - Written Kabyle has no article; "the house" is often just axxam, or axxam-nni when it points to a house already known. - The first mention takes "a" (the bare Kabyle noun), the second mention takes "the" (often the noun with -nni): "A teacher came in. The teacher gave a book to a girl." - "The" comes before the noun and before its adjectives: the new house. Kabyle -nni comes after the noun. - No "the" before names of people, towns, countries and languages (Algeria, Tizi Ouzou, Kabyle, English); rivers take it: the Soummam.
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Pronunciation Guide:
the — before a consonant sound /ðə/: the house /ðə ˈhaʊs/, the village /ðə ˈvɪlɪdʒ/; before a vowel sound /ði/: the old man /ði ˈəʊld ˈmæn/, the island /ði ˈaɪlənd/; with stress, meaning "the famous one, the real one", /ðiː/.
The first sound of "the", /ð/, is not a separate letter in Kabyle, but you already know it. In Kabyle d is often pronounced as a soft, voiced "th" between vowels and at the end of a word, and t, in the same places, as the voiceless "th" /θ/ of "thank" and "north"; this softening is called spirantization, and its extent varies from one region to another. So put the tip of the tongue lightly between the teeth and let the air pass with voice, so that the throat buzzes, as you do for d in many Kabyle words. It is neither "d" nor "z". The difference is that in English /ð/ can begin a word and is a sound in its own right: learners often say "de house" or "ze house": you will be understood, but it is not the standard sound.
The vowel of "the" before a consonant, /ə/, is a short, weak sound with no stress, like the "a" at the end of "sofa". Kabyle has a short neutral vowel of this kind, which it writes e (as in teqqar and yekcem), but it does not write it for every syllable. Let the vowel shrink and run into the next word: the_house, to_the_village /tə ðə ˈvɪlɪdʒ/. Do not say "the" with a full Kabyle a, i or u.
Remember that the rule depends on the sound, not the letter: the hour /ði ˈaʊə/ (the h is silent, so the word begins with a vowel sound), but the university /ðə ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːsəti/ (the word begins with the sound /j/, like Kabyle y in yiṭij).
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Part A (English and Kabyle text, word by word. A hyphen standing alone, " - ", means that nothing in the Kabyle answers that English word. A hyphen written inside a Kabyle word (axxam-nni, efk-iyi-d) is Kabyle spelling: it joins a suffix or a pronoun to its word. A raised dot joins Kabyle words that answer one English word or phrase (ur·leddi·ara). The pairs follow the English order: in a real Kabyle sentence the verb comes first, and -nni stands at the end of its noun. See Part B for the true Kabyle order. The Kabyle of the examples is pedagogical: it is built from published example sentences and from the reference grammars and dictionaries, a few sentences being minimal variants of them, and it has not been read by a native speaker):
1.1 The - house axxam-nni.
1.2 The - teacher aselmad-nni.
1.3 The - village taddart-nni.
1.4 The - bread aɣrum-nni.
1.5 The - girl taqcict-nni is reading teqqar.
1.6 The - sun tafukt is burning teḥma.
1.7 The - teacher uselmad came in yekcem-d.
1.8 Where is anda-t the - teacher uselmad-nni?
1.9 Where is anda·yella the - bread weɣrum?
1.10 Open lli the - book adlis-nni!
1.11 Do not open ur·leddi·ara the - book adlis-nni.
1.12 Give me efk-iyi-d the - bread aɣrum-nni!
1.13 I know ssneɣ the - road abrid.
1.14 The - road ubrid is straight iṣeggem.
1.15 He lives yezdeg in deg the - town temdint.
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Part B (Full English sentence followed by the Kabyle translation):
1.1 The house. Axxam-nni.
1.2 The teacher. Aselmad-nni.
1.3 The village. Taddart-nni.
1.4 The bread. Aɣrum-nni.
1.5 The girl is reading. Taqcict-nni teqqar.
1.6 The sun is burning. Tafukt teḥma.
1.7 The teacher came in. Yekcem-d uselmad.
1.8 Where is the teacher? Anda-t uselmad-nni?
1.9 Where is the bread? Anda yella weɣrum?
1.10 Open the book! Lli adlis-nni!
1.11 Do not open the book. Ur leddi ara adlis-nni.
1.12 Give me the bread! Efk-iyi-d aɣrum-nni!
1.13 I know the road. Ssneɣ abrid.
1.14 The road is straight. Iṣeggem ubrid.
1.15 He lives in the town. Yezdeg deg temdint.
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Part C (English text only):
1.1 The house.
1.2 The teacher.
1.3 The village.
1.4 The bread.
1.5 The girl is reading.
1.6 The sun is burning.
1.7 The teacher came in.
1.8 Where is the teacher?
1.9 Where is the bread?
1.10 Open the book!
1.11 Do not open the book.
1.12 Give me the bread!
1.13 I know the road.
1.14 The road is straight.
1.15 He lives in the town.
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Part D (Grammar explanation):
These are the grammar rules for "the" in English:
1. "The" never changes. Kabyle marks the plural on the noun itself (adlis, idlisen) and then adds the same -nni (idlisen-nni, igerdan-nni). English changes only the end of the noun, and "the" stays the same: the house, the houses; the child, the children; the book, the books. There is no "the" for one thing and another "the" for many: one word does all the work.
2. "The" comes first. In Kabyle -nni is joined to the end of the noun: axxam-nni (1.1), aselmad-nni (1.2) and uselmad-nni (1.8), adlis-nni (1.10, 1.11). In English "the" stands before the noun, and an adjective stands between "the" and the noun: the new house, the old road. Never "house the" or "house-nni" for "the house".
3. A thing mentioned again takes "the". The first time, English says "a"; after that, "the": "A teacher came in. The teacher gave a book to a girl." Kabyle does almost the same thing: the bare noun for the new thing, the noun with -nni for the known thing. This is the one place where Kabyle and English agree. The Genre Section shows the movement over a whole text.
4. "The" before what is clear from the situation. "The teacher came in" (1.7) means the teacher of this class; "Where is the bread?" (1.9) means the bread we were speaking of; "He lives in the town" (1.15) means our town. Kabyle says uselmad, weɣrum, temdint with no extra word; English must say "the".
5. "The" before what is unique. There is only one sun, one moon and one world: the sun (1.6), the moon, the world. English cannot say "Sun is burning" for the sun. Kabyle has no article to forget; English has one. (Kabyle has two words for the sun, tafukt and iṭij; English has one.)
6. "The" before a noun made clear by the rest of the sentence: "the girl who is reading", "the people of Kabylie". The words after the noun ("who is reading", "of Kabylie") show which one, so the noun takes "the".
7. "The" before ordinal numbers and superlatives: the first lesson, the second lesson, the biggest village. English cannot say "first lesson is good" of a particular lesson.
8. Names. Rivers and mountain ranges take "the": the Soummam, the Djurdjura. Countries, towns and languages do not: Algeria, Tizi Ouzou, Béjaïa, Kabyle, English, French. A few country names do take it, and you must learn them one by one: the Gambia, the Netherlands, the United States.
9. No "the" in some fixed phrases: "at school", "go to school", "at home", "go home", "go to bed". Kabyle does not separate "at school" from "at the school"; English does. "The children are at school" means that they are there as pupils; "The children are at the school" means only the place.
10. "The" hides inside a Kabyle preposition. Kabyle puts deg ("in") before the noun, and the noun then takes its construct state, so that tamdint becomes temdint: deg temdint (1.15). English needs three words: "in the town". The same is true of "to the village" (Kabyle ɣer taddart) and "to the teacher" (i uselmad-nni). Do not forget "the".
11. Do not confuse the two jobs of -nni. In aselmad-nni (1.2) -nni is the nearest to English "the"; but it can also mean "that teacher". English uses two quite different words: "the teacher" and "that teacher". Say "that" only when you point.
12. Verb agreement. A Kabyle verb agrees with its subject in person, number and gender: Yekcem-d uselmad "the teacher (m.) came in" (1.7), Taqcict-nni teqqar "the girl (f.) is reading" (1.5). English verbs do not change for gender, but they change for number: "The girl is" (1.5), "The girls are". "The" does not help you here, so look at the noun.
13. The state of the noun. In Kabyle the noun takes a different first vowel after a verb or a preposition (the construct state): aselmad (1.2, before the verb) but uselmad (1.7, after the verb); axxam but deg uxxam. English has nothing like this: the house, the house, always the same. Do not carry the change into English.
14. Adjectives that are verbs. Kabyle says Iṣeggem ubrid (1.14) with the verb iṣeggem, literally "it is straight, the road"; English cannot leave out the verb "to be". Say "The road is straight", never "The road straight".
15. "The" before a vowel sound is said /ði/: "the old man", "the island". Before a consonant sound it is /ðə/: "the house", "the village". The spelling does not change, only the sound.
Common mistakes:
- ✗ Teacher came in. ✓ The teacher came in. (Kabyle has no article, so it is easy to leave "the" out.) - ✗ Where is bread? ✓ Where is the bread? (Kabyle Anda yella weɣrum? has no article.) - ✗ The road straight. ✓ The road is straight. (Kabyle iṣeggem is itself the verb "is straight"; English needs "is".) - ✗ I know road. ✓ I know the road. (Ssneɣ abrid has nothing for "the".) - ✗ Teacher the came in. / ✗ House-nni. ✓ The teacher came in. ✓ The house. (English "the" stands before the noun; -nni stands after it.) - ✗ Sun is burning. ✓ The sun is burning. (There is only one sun.) - ✗ He lives in town. ✓ He lives in the town. ("In town" is possible only in certain phrases; here English needs "the".) - ✗ The Algeria is a country. / ✗ The Tizi Ouzou is a city. ✓ Algeria is a country. Tizi Ouzou is a city. (No "the" before countries and towns.) - ✗ I speak the English. ✓ I speak English. (No "the" before languages.) - ✗ Soummam is a long river. ✓ The Soummam is a river. (Rivers take "the".) - ✗ The girl are reading. ✓ The girl is reading. ("The" does not change, but "is" and "are" do.) - ✗ de bread, ze bread ✓ the bread /ðə/, the old man /ði/
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Part E (Cultural context):
English is a language of school and of work in Algeria, and most Kabyle speakers meet it after Arabic and French. French has articles of its own: le, la, les for a known thing, un, une for a new one. English "the" is simpler than all of them, because it has no gender and no plural form. But it is used differently. French says "Les enfants aiment les livres" for children and books in general; English says "Children like books", with no "the". English leaves out "the" when it speaks of a kind of thing in general, and uses it for one particular thing. Arabic, the other language of the Algerian school, has its own article al-, written on a great many words (and carried into Kabyle with Arabic loanwords such as lkaɣeḍ, "paper"), so you will recognise the idea; but the English "the" is not a part of the word.
Kabylie is a land of villages, taddart in Kabyle, each with its own assembly (tajmaɛt), and of mountains, among which the Djurdjura is the great range. "The village" is a good place to hear "the" at work: "I went to the village", "Where is the bread?", "Open the book!" Notice that in every one of these Kabyle may use the bare noun, with no -nni.
English calls the great range above Kabylie "the Djurdjura". English says "Tizi Ouzou lies below the Djurdjura", with "the" because it is a mountain range, and without it for the town. The Soummam, which flows through Béjaïa, is "the Soummam" in English: rivers take "the", whatever the language they come from.
Variety. The examples use the Kabyle of Kabylie as it is commonly written. Kabyle has no single standard, and the forms of the construct state vary: a speaker from one valley says deg uxxam, another deg wexxam; the word for "English" is written taglizit or tanglizit. The lessons keep one form throughout. Where a reader finds a different spelling in a book or a newspaper, it is the same word.
When you speak to someone, there is no "the" before the word you call them by. "Good morning, Lounis!" is the English greeting, never "Good morning, the Lounis!"
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Part F (Literary citation):
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly, Paris, 10 December 1948), Article 26, paragraph 1, first sentence, in the official English text. The English sentence is chosen because it is authentic, famous, and contains "the right to", a phrase in which "the" is easy to forget. The Declaration has been translated into Kabyle; this lesson does not reproduce a translation, and in F-A it glosses only the words whose Kabyle is certain, leaving a "-" where it is not.
F-A (English and Kabyle text, word by word; "-" means that no Kabyle word is given):
F.1 Everyone yal·yiwen has yesɛa the - right azref to - education -.
F-B (Original text):
"Everyone has the right to education."
F-C (English text only):
"Everyone has the right to education."
F-D (Grammar and literary commentary):
English says "has the right to": the verb "has", the noun "right", and "the" before it. Here "the right" is a particular right, made clear by the words that follow, "to education" (Part D, rule 6). That is why English says "the right" and not "a right". Notice that there is no "the" before "education": it is a general idea, and English leaves out "the" before a general idea. Compare "the school", a particular building.
- Everyone: one word, singular, so the verb is "has", not "have". Kabyle yal yiwen is "each one", with yal ("every, each") before yiwen ("one"). - has the right to: English needs the verb "has", the article "the", the noun "right" and the word "to", four words for one idea. Kabyle yesɛa azref is "he has a right", and azref is a word for "right" made for the language of law and of the Declaration; it has no "the", and in the Kabyle sentences consulted the word that follows it is deg ("in"), not a word for "to". Do not translate the phrase word by word. - education: this lesson gives no Kabyle word, because none has been confirmed; English says it with no "the".
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A short narrative written for this lesson. Each new person or thing enters with "a" (the bare Kabyle noun), and from then on is picked up with "the" (often -nni). Notice also the places where English says "the" and Kabyle says nothing. The Kabyle is pedagogical, built from attested patterns, and has not been read by a native speaker.
Part A (English and Kabyle text, word by word, with the same conventions as in the first fifteen examples):
1.16 The - sun yiṭij has risen yuli.
1.17 The - village taddart was tella silent terked.
1.18 A teacher uselmad came in yekcem-d.
1.19 The - teacher uselmad gave yefka a book adlis to a girl i·teqcict.
1.20 The - teacher aselmad-nni said yenna: "Open lli the - book adlis-nni!"
1.21 The - girl teqcict-nni opened teldi the - book adlis-nni.
1.22 The - girl teqcict-nni is reading teqqar the - book adlis-nni.
1.23 The - teacher uselmad said yenna: "Where is anda·yella the - bread weɣrum?"
1.24 The - girl teqcict-nni gave tefka the - bread aɣrum-nni to the - teacher i·uselmad-nni.
1.25 We ate nečča the - bread aɣrum-nni.
1.26 The - teacher uselmad knows yessen the - road abrid.
1.27 The - road ubrid is narrow yeḍyeq.
1.28 We learn nlemmed English taglizit every day yal·ass.
1.29 I speak ttmeslayeɣ English taglizit.
1.30 The - teacher uselmad lives yezdeg in deg the - town temdint.
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Part B (Full English sentence followed by the Kabyle translation):
1.16 The sun has risen. Yuli yiṭij.
1.17 The village was silent. Taddart tella terked.
1.18 A teacher came in. Yekcem-d uselmad.
1.19 The teacher gave a book to a girl. Yefka uselmad adlis i teqcict.
1.20 The teacher said, "Open the book!" Aselmad-nni yenna: "Lli adlis-nni!"
1.21 The girl opened the book. Teldi teqcict-nni adlis-nni.
1.22 The girl is reading the book. Teqqar teqcict-nni adlis-nni.
1.23 The teacher said, "Where is the bread?" Yenna uselmad: "Anda yella weɣrum?"
1.24 The girl gave the bread to the teacher. Tefka teqcict-nni aɣrum-nni i uselmad-nni.
1.25 We ate the bread. Nečča aɣrum-nni.
1.26 The teacher knows the road. Yessen uselmad abrid.
1.27 The road is narrow. Yeḍyeq ubrid.
1.28 We learn English every day. Nlemmed taglizit yal ass.
1.29 I speak English. Ttmeslayeɣ taglizit.
1.30 The teacher lives in the town. Yezdeg uselmad deg temdint.
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Part C (English text only):
1.16 The sun has risen.
1.17 The village was silent.
1.18 A teacher came in.
1.19 The teacher gave a book to a girl.
1.20 The teacher said, "Open the book!"
1.21 The girl opened the book.
1.22 The girl is reading the book.
1.23 The teacher said, "Where is the bread?"
1.24 The girl gave the bread to the teacher.
1.25 We ate the bread.
1.26 The teacher knows the road.
1.27 The road is narrow.
1.28 We learn English every day.
1.29 I speak English.
1.30 The teacher lives in the town.
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Part D (Grammar explanation):
The narrative is in the simple past (came in, gave, said, opened, ate, was) and the present for states, habits and actions in progress (is reading, knows, lives, learn, speak). Its grammatical thread is the movement from "a" to "the" (Part D, rule 3). The teacher enters as "a teacher" (1.18) and is "the teacher" from 1.19 on; the book enters as "a book" (1.19) and is "the book" in 1.20, 1.21 and 1.22; the girl enters as "a girl" (1.19) and is "the girl" from 1.21 on. Kabyle does the same with -nni, when it chooses to: uselmad (1.18), then aselmad-nni (1.20); adlis (1.19), then adlis-nni (1.20); teqcict (1.19), then teqcict-nni (1.21).
- "The sun" (1.16), "the village" (1.17), "the bread" (1.23) and "the road" (1.26, 1.27) have "the" although they are mentioned for the first time: both speaker and listener know which sun, which village, which bread and which road. Kabyle says yiṭij, taddart, weɣrum and abrid with no extra word (rule 4). - The sun is unique (rule 5). English cannot say "Sun has risen"; Kabyle needs no article. - Compare 1.23 (weɣrum, no -nni) with 1.24 and 1.25 (aɣrum-nni): Kabyle uses -nni when the speaker points back at the bread already spoken of, and leaves it out when it is not needed; English must say "the bread" in all three. - "A book to a girl" (1.19): both nouns are new, so English says "a"; Kabyle says adlis i teqcict, and the noun after i is in the construct state (teqcict). - The same girl is taqcict-nni before the verb (1.5) but teqcict-nni after it (1.21, 1.22, 1.24); the same teacher is aselmad-nni before the verb (1.20) but uselmad after it (1.18, 1.19, 1.23, 1.26). The English "the girl" and "the teacher" are always the same (rule 13). - "The teacher" is a man or a woman in English; the Kabyle verb shows which: yenna (1.20, "he said") would be tenna for a woman. English does not mark gender in the verb (rule 12). - "To the teacher" (1.24) is Kabyle i uselmad-nni, with the little word i before the noun. Do not forget "the" (rule 10). - "We ate the bread" (1.25) and "We learn English every day" (1.28): the Kabyle verb has the pronoun inside it (nečča, nlemmed), where English needs a separate word "we". "English" (1.28, 1.29) takes no "the" (rule 8). - "The road is narrow" (1.27): the Kabyle verb yeḍyeq means "it is narrow" by itself; English needs "is" (rule 14). - "In the town" (1.30) is deg temdint, with the preposition before the noun and the noun in its construct state. English needs "the": in the town (rule 10). - Quoted speech (1.20, 1.23): English puts a comma before the quotation marks, and the sentence inside begins with a capital letter: The teacher said, "Open the book!" Kabyle puts a colon (yenna: "…").
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Pronunciation and Orthography Notes:
- the — /ðə/ before a consonant sound, /ði/ before a vowel sound, /ðiː/ when stressed. Unstressed, short, and joined to the next word. - /ð/ is made with the tongue between the teeth and voice in the throat. It is not Kabyle d at the beginning of a word, and it is not z; it is close to the d that Kabyle speakers say between vowels in many places. - Spelling: t-h-e, always the same, for singular and plural and for every kind of noun. - Kabyle spelling to watch when comparing: Kabyle c is the sound of English "sh" (taqcict, "girl"), č is the sound of English "ch" (as in "church"), ǧ is the sound of English "j" in "jam", and the letters ɛ, ɣ, ḥ, ḍ, ṛ, ṣ, ṭ, ẓ stand for sounds that English does not have and writes with no special letter. English c is the sound of k or s (cat, city), and English never writes c for "sh" except in the endings of a few words (ocean, special). - Kabyle writes only the vowels a, i, u and a short e, and each letter has one sound. English has five vowel letters and many more vowel sounds, so the spelling does not tell you the sound: the same "ee" is heard in see and bee, and "the" is said /ðə/ or /ði/ with no change of spelling. - Kabyle does not write stress; English marks stress, and the stress of "the" is weak. - Capital letters: English writes the names of languages and peoples with capitals: English, Kabyle, French. It does not write "the" with a capital except at the start of a sentence or as the first word of a title (The Lion King).
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