#089 emmotoka
emmotoka /emːotoka/
[noun] car
Luganda, FSI Basic Course
To a new language today, namely Luganda (also known as Ganda). This is a language which has attracted my interest in the past couple of weeks. A Bantu language, Luganda is, as one might expect, spoken in the Republic of Uganda by a total of around 5 million people (including those for whom it is a second or third language).
For those that don’t already know, Uganda used to be a protectorate of the British Empire and so English was widely spoken there. Indeed, it is still widely spoken in Uganda and Africa in general. Needless to say, this had linguistic consequences. One such consequence was the importation of loan words from English. And one such word is featured today: emmotoka. If you read it aloud and look at the photo above, taken in Kampala (I believe), you will probably realise, if you hadn’t already, that it is an assimilated version of the phrase “a motor car”.