A KINYARWNDA-ENGLISH AND ENGLISH-KINYARWANDA DICTIONARY

1082 Pages·2006·6.44 MB·English

by  Emmanuel Habumuremyi, Claudine Uwamahoro

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Mr. Emmanuel Habumuremyi
and
Mrs. Claudine Uwamahoro

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, including photocopying, recording and storage in a retrieval system, without the written
permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the copyright legislation in force in
Rwanda.
PREFACE

Since 1994, Rwanda is a state with three official languages: Kinyarwanda (a national language
spoken by all Rwandans), French and English. As a trilingual state, Rwanda needs good linguistic
tools to use while handling official documents, rendering contents from one language to another,
preparing teaching materials, and sharing experiences with other communities. At the time being, a
Kinyarwanda-Kinyarwanda and a Kinyarwanda-French Dictionaries have been compiled by the
Rwandan National Institute of Scientific Research (IRST). However, only one attempt to compile a
Kinyarwanda-English was carried out by Geoffrey Rugege (PhD), a Professor of Linguistics at
Grambling University, when he published a Kinyarwanda-English in 2005.
After pointing out that the interaction between Rwandans and their guests from English-
speaking countries is a must, and noticing how quick the English language is becoming an
important language in our country, especially in education, the authors of this dictionary
concluded that materials that can facilitate communication should be put in place.
In your hands is a new attempt to the first Edition of a bilingual Kinyarwanda-English and
English-Kinyarwanda Dictionary by Emmanuel Habumuremyi and Claudine Uwamahoro both
members of Rwanda Community Net. This is a unique Dictionary of this kind in Rwanda because of
two reasons: before its conception in 2000, there was no other available dictionary of this kind to
satisfy the users’ needs. It is also the only Kinyarwanda-English dictionary published in a software
format to facilitate an easy word search for users.
This is the first step towards a future complete Kinyarwanda-English and English
Kinyarwanda dictionary. It is the result of a five-year collection of words from both English
and Kinyarwanda languages books, talks and media. The entries have been chosen from
literary texts, newspapers, speeches by Rwanda authorities and Internet.
As there is a need for good dictionaries to help users to find the right word at the right
time, the authors have thought of conceiving a Dictionary organized as follow:
- A brief introduction on the Kinyarwanda language;
- Kinyarwanda pronunciation;
- Kinyarwanda grammar in brief;
- Origin of words used in this dictionary
- List of abbreviations used in the dictionary;
- Bibliography;
- The dictionary itself.
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This dictionary intends to provide you with entries followed by their equivalents in the
target language and some examples in sentences. These entries are labelled: terms used in
general use with their synonyms, technical terms and the fields in which they are used.
Proverbs, idioms and expressions are provided to help the users to be accustomed to the
cultural content that will be emphasized as fully as the authors could it. This task will be
reinforced in the second edition which is under way.
This work provides not only equivalents of words but also helps both Kinyarwanda
and English learners to localize words in their cultural environments. Entries are illustrated by
examples from every day language in use. In addition, notes and comments on unusual words
or phrases are given as well as synonyms and antonyms.
I hope this will, at least partly, meet the Kinyarwanda and English learners’ needs and
serve as a bilingual-language reference work for teachers, tourists, translators and whoever
needs to strengthen his/her knowledge in both Rwandan and English culture.
Nevertheless, we all are conscious that the completion of such a project is not an easy
task. Some shortcomings and misuse of words can occur. The authors are waiting from the
users any comments, criticism and suggestions on this edition so as to improve the
forthcoming editions.
Finally, let us note that this dictionary is different from other Bantu dictionaries, whose
search of word is root-based. The present one is a lexemme-based dictionary because of its
first nature: to be an electronic bilingual dictionary. Based on your feedback, the authors think
that the second version will be improved and be a root-based for the sake of linguistics’ needs.

Butare, September 2006
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PPRREEFFAACCEE................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................iiiiii
CONTENTS..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................vv
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE 1st EDITION..............................................................................................................................................vvii
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KINYARWANDA GRAMMAR.........................................................................................17
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KINYARWANDA-ENGLISH DICTIONARY………………………….……...1-312
ENGLISH-KINYARWANDA DICTIONARY………………………….……...1-60
KINYARWANDA BASIC PHRASES………………………………………………..

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Mr Emmanuel Habumuremyi
(who is now a Content Team Leader at the Rwanda National Portal hold by the Rwanda Development Gateway:
www.rwanda.rw, National University of Rwanda, Huye)
Mrs Claudine Uwamahoro
(a Social Worker, Kigali City)

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WHAT IS RWANDA COMMUNITY NET

Rwanda Community Net is a Rwandan non-profit making
organisation.
Our Vision: Rural area access to ICT for sustainable development.
Our mission: Promotion of the community's participation in their socio-
economic welfare through the ICTs.
Our objectives are the following:
• To popularise the ICT in rural areas;
• To contribute to the socio-economic development based on ICT in rural
areas;
• To provide ICT training sessions to the population and the grassroots
entities in rural areas;
• To set up ICT training centres in rural areas;
• To promote Internet access to remote areas and ensure that women and
vulnerable citizens are using it in their activities;
• To help the community to understand the e-government system and its
politico-socio-economic role;
• To contribute in promoting ICT in national
language;
• To sensitise the community in avoiding negative cultural values
disseminated via ICT and to safeguard the positive cultural values of our
country;
• To develop network relationships with other actors in the field of ICT.
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Ackowledgements

This dictionary is a result of a combination of information gathered from different sources and books
written on both Kinyarwanda and English languages.

We owe special thanks to Prof Chrysologue Karangwa, the current KIST Rector, Prof Silas
Mureramanzi and Canisius Karuranga who are respectively the academic and Financial vice rectors at
the National University of Rwanda, Prof Gerard Rutazibwa a lecturer at the National University of
Rwanda, and Mr Antoine Bigirimana the E-Tools CEO. Their scientific experiences and advice
contributed a lot to the finalization of this work.

We also acknowledge the wisdom of different Rwandan people, especially those who provided us
with context of some Kinyarwanda words and their cultural setting. In addition, we admire the works
by the following scholars: Mr Simon Bizimana, Father Irénée Jacob, Father Pierre Schumacher, Mr
C.M. Overdulve, Mr G. Van Overshilde, Father Alexis Kagame, Mr Cyprien Rugamba, Father
Bernardin Muzungu, Mgr Aloys Bigirumwami, Dr Alexander Kimenyi, Mr François-Xavier Gasimba
and others to whom we acknowledge their contribution to our inspiration.

We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to all our teachers in primary and secondary
schools, and to all the lecturers at the National University of Rwanda for their contribution to our
intellectual education. Special thanks are addressed to Dr Celestin Kanimba the acting Director of the
National Musieum based at Huye, Mr George Rwamasirabo Head of the English Department at the
National University of Rwanda, Dr Chysostome Nkejabahizi, Mr Charles Karugu, Mr Faustin
Mutwarasibo and Mr Canisius Ruterana for their advice and their acceptance to contribute in
proofreading and editing the forthcoming version.
We finally indebted to all friends and people who encouraged us in compiling this dictionary. May
Richard and Ron Moe find here our recognition for their advice and support in using SIL software.
We take this opportunity to all invite people interested in promoting languages, especially scholars in
linguistics and publishers, to contribute in editing, improving and financing the editions to come from
IRIZA-STARTER dictionary series.
The authors

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INTRODUCTION

About Kinyarwanda
The Rwandan language is known as “Kinyarwanda” by people. It is an important language of East
Central Africa. Besides being the national language of Rwanda, Kinyarwanda is probably, after
Kiswahili the second largest spoken language in the Bantu group. It is a sister dialect of Kirundi, the
national language of Burundi and Giha, a dialect spoken in Tanzania. Its speakers are perhaps more
than 20 million people.
It is the official language in the Republic of Rwanda, spoken by almost everyone in this country - with
over 8,000,000 speakers-and in the neighbouring countries. Apart from its speakers in Rwanda right
now, Burundi has around 7 million speakers of Kirundi who can understand Kinyarwanda very well.
Besides the Giha dialect speakers there are also ethnic Banyarwanda in Southern Uganda in the Kigezi
district known as Bafumbira. Other Kinyarwanda speakers are Banyamulenge in Southern Kivu and
ethnic Banyarwanda in Masisi and Rutshuro in Northern Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kinyarwanda belongs to the interlacustrine (Great Lakes) Bantu languages. There are a total of
approximately 20 million of native speakers of Kinyarwanda (cfr. Kimenyi Alexander for more
Information).
This language is part of the Bantu sub-group of the central branch of the Niger-Congo language
family. It is closely related to Kirundi, the language of Burundi. Kinyarwanda-Kirundi speakers
comprise the third largest group of all the Bantu languages.

As Ernest Haddon says, "the word Bantu is derived from a common root found in this group of
African languages meaning people," recognizable in Kinyarwanda as abantu. "The Bantu group includes some
hundreds of languages and dialects stretching right across Africa, mostly south of the Equator." Johnston (Sir H. H.
Johnston, A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages) thinks that the Bantu language was
evolved south or south-east of Lake Chad, and may date from 400-300 B.C. Others would place the
focus of origin nearer to the White Nile or even east of it. Bantu languages are characterized by the
absence of grammatical Gender and a system of Class Prefixes. Gender is dealt within the main text.

Kinyarwanda is a rich language with many words having similar meanings, yet fine shades of thought.
Two words may be translated by the same English word and yet they may be used interchangeably. So
strive to ferret out the exact meaning of words. Also, remember that each Kinyarwanda word does
not have an exact English equivalent and likewise, do not expect to find a Kinyarwanda equivalent for
every English word. Another thing to remember here is that Kinyarwanda vocabulary has been most
influenced by Swahili and Arabic (through culture, trade and military), Geramany and Latin (through
politics and Religion), and more recently by French and English (through education, science and
technology).