Kampala

Level: Beginner Audience: Family / all ages Geo: Uganda -> Kampala (Luganda, the language of Buganda and of everyday Kampala)

Counting is the easiest Luganda to practise at home: on the stairs, with mangoes in a bowl, or with the seven hills of Kampala. Say each number slowly first. Doubled letters (bb, ss, nn, tt, kk) are held a little longer than single ones, which is part of what makes Luganda sound the way it does.

One to ten

Number	Luganda	Say it	Count it with
1	emu	eh-moo	one Kabaka's palace on Mengo hill
2	bbiri	bee-ree (hold the b)	two cathedrals, Namirembe and Lubaga
3	ssatu	ssah-too	three rolexes for the family
4	nnya	nn-yah	four Kabakas resting at Kasubi
5	ttaano	ttah-no	five divisions of Kampala
6	mukaaga	moo-kah-ga	six boda-bodas at the stage
7	musanvu	moo-sahn-voo	seven hills of Kampala
8	munaana	moo-nah-na	eight fishing boats at Ggaba
9	mwenda	mwen-da	nine bunches of matooke
10	kkumi	kkoo-mee	ten fingers

[Audio: a Kampala speaker counting from emu to kkumi, slowly and then at normal speed]

A little further

Number	Luganda	Notes
20	amakumi abiri	literally "two tens"
100	kikumi

A note for parents

In Luganda the numbers one to five behave like adjectives and change their beginning to match the noun they count, so the forms above are the plain counting forms you use when counting aloud or answering "how many?". A speaker might say the same number slightly differently inside a sentence. Learn the counting forms first; the rest comes naturally from listening.

[Image: ten mangoes in a bowl, numbered emu to kkumi]

Try it at home

1. Count the stairs in your house in Luganda.
2. Count how many hills your family can name in Kampala, up to musanvu.
3. At the shop: hold up fingers and say the number; a relative says it back.

Numerals and spellings follow the Wikivoyage Luganda phrasebook (accessed 2026-10-04); the note on numbers 1-5 agreeing with nouns follows the grammar summary on Wikipedia: Luganda. Pronunciation hints are approximate guides for English speakers, not a phonetic transcription.

Level: Beginner Audience: Family / all ages Geo: Uganda -> Kampala (Luganda is the language of Buganda and the everyday language of Kampala's streets, markets and taxis; English and Swahili are Uganda's official languages)

Luganda is a Bantu language with at least 5.6 million first-language speakers in the Buganda region and millions more who use it as a second language in towns across Uganda. Three tips before the table: every vowel is pronounced; a doubled letter (like the ee in weeraba or the bb in bbiri) is held a little longer; and greetings in Buganda are not rushed. Asking how someone slept, or how their day has gone, is the greeting, and it is polite to wait for the answer.

Greeting someone

Luganda	English	Notes
Oli otya?	How are you? / Hello (to one person)	The all-purpose greeting.
Muli mutya?	How are you? / Hello (to more than one person)	Use for a group or a whole room.
Gyendi	I am fine	The usual short reply a child gives. Wikivoyage lists Bulungi ("well / fine") as the reply; many Kampala speakers say Gyendi or Gyendi bulungi. Both are fine.
Bulungi	Fine, well	Also the answer to "how did you sleep / how was your day".
Wasuze otya?	Good morning (literally "how did you spend the night?")	Reply: Bulungi.
Osiibye otya nno?	Good afternoon / good evening (literally "how have you spent the day?")	Reply: Bulungi.
Sula bulungi	Good night (literally "sleep well")	Said to one person at bedtime.
Weeraba	Goodbye (to one person)	Often written Weraba; the first vowel is long. Mweraba to a group.

[Audio: a Kampala parent or grandparent recording each greeting and its reply]

Courtesy words a child should know

Luganda	English	Notes
Webale	Thank you	Webale nyo = thank you very much. Also spelled Weebale.
Kale	You are welcome; okay	The everyday reply to Webale; also means "all right".
Mwattu	Please	Added to a request.
Nsonyiwa	Sorry / forgive me	For your own mistake.
Owange	Excuse me (to get someone's attention)
Wangi	Yes? / Pardon? (answering when called, or asking someone to repeat)	A child answers Wangi when a parent calls their name.
Yee / Nedda	Yes / No
Erinnya lyange nze ...	My name is ...	Reply to Erinnya lyo ggwe ani? ("What is your name?").

[Audio: the courtesy words, said slowly and then at normal speed]

Two words for the dinner table

Luganda	English	Notes
Amazzi	Water
Emmere	Food	In Buganda emmere is so closely tied to matooke (steamed green bananas) that the two words are often used for each other.

[Image: a grandmother and grandchild greeting each other at the door of a Kampala home]

Try it at home

1. Child: Jjajja, wasuze otya? (Grandmother, good morning.) Grandmother: Bulungi.
2. Child: Gyendi. Grandmother hands over a plate: child says Webale; grandmother answers Kale.
3. Bedtime: Sula bulungi.

Only well-attested phrases are listed. Spellings follow the Wikivoyage Luganda phrasebook (accessed 2026-10-04); the reply Gyendi is widely taught in Kampala (Lingalot, Kabiza phrase guides) but is not in Wikivoyage, so it is marked as a variant. Ask a relative which forms their household uses.

Everybody at the Kawempe stage knew Ssalongo. He was the boda-boda rider with the bright blue motorcycle, the one who always wore his helmet and always carried a spare one for his passenger, even though some of the other riders laughed and said helmets were for people who were afraid.

"I am not afraid," Ssalongo would say. "I am a father. That is different."

One Monday morning a small boy called Kato came to the stage holding his mother's hand. Kato was seven. He had a new school bag and very shiny shoes, and he was going to a new school across the city, near Nakasero, for the very first time.

"Ssalongo," said Kato's mother, "I start work before dawn now, and I cannot take him. Will you carry my son to school every morning and bring him home every afternoon? I will pay you on Fridays."

Ssalongo looked at Kato, who was trying very hard not to look small. "I promise," he said. "Every morning, every afternoon, rain or sun, until you tell me to stop."

Kato held out his hand like a grown man, and Ssalongo shook it.

For two weeks it was easy. The sun shone. Ssalongo wove the blue motorcycle down through Wandegeya, past the university gate, and dropped Kato at the school fence with five minutes to spare. On the way home Kato told him everything: the teacher's name, the boy who could whistle through his fingers, the song they were learning. Sometimes they stopped for a rolex, a hot chapati rolled around fried eggs and cabbage, and ate it on the kerb.

Then the rains came.

In Kampala, when it rains in April, it does not rain. It falls. The sky goes the colour of charcoal, the thunder rolls over the hills, and the roads become brown rivers. Riders at the stage pull on plastic sheets and wait under shop verandas, because nobody takes a boda-boda in that rain. Nobody.

On the third morning of the rains, Ssalongo's wife looked out at the water pouring off the roof and said, "You are not going out in that."

"I promised the boy."

"He will understand. His mother will understand. Everyone understands rain."

Ssalongo put on his jacket. "Kato shook my hand," he said. "A promise that only works in sunshine is not a promise. It is a wish."

He rode slowly, very slowly, with the rain hammering on his helmet and the brown water washing over his boots. At the stage no other rider had come out. Kato was standing under the veranda of the pharmacy, his shiny shoes already muddy, his face set hard like a boy who was telling himself not to cry.

When he saw the blue motorcycle come through the rain, his whole face changed.

"You came," he said.

"I promised," said Ssalongo, and handed him the spare helmet and a plastic sheet to wrap around his school bag.

They went down through the city at the speed of a walking cow. Water ran across the road near the taxi parks like a stream, and Ssalongo got off and pushed the motorcycle through it with Kato still sitting on the seat, feet held up high, laughing now. They reached the school fifteen minutes late and soaked to the skin. The teacher took one look at them and said nothing at all, except to find Kato a towel.

That Friday, when Kato's mother came to pay, she tried to give Ssalongo extra money for the rainy days. He would not take it.

"You did not pay me for sunshine," he said. "You paid me for a promise. The price is the same."

The story got around the stage, the way stories do. Nobody laughed at Ssalongo's helmets after that. And when the rains came the next year, three more riders came out early, with plastic sheets ready, to look for small passengers waiting under verandas.

Kato's grandmother, when she heard the story, nodded and said the old Luganda saying: Agali awamu ge galuma ennyama - teeth that stand together are the ones that chew the meat.

Nakato was eight, and she had a problem with hills. Her teacher had said that Kampala was the City of Seven Hills, and Nakato had looked out of the classroom window and seen hills in every direction, far more than seven, and decided that somebody, somewhere, had counted wrong.

"Jjajja," she said to her grandmother that Saturday, "how can it be seven hills when there are hills everywhere?"

Jjajja Nnalongo laughed so hard she had to put down her basket of matooke. "Come," she said. "We will count them properly. Bring your shoes."

They took a boda-boda, Nakato squeezed between the rider and her grandmother, up the long slope of Old Kampala hill. At the top stood the great mosque with its tall white minaret. Jjajja paid a small fee, and a kind guide led them up and up the minaret stairs until Nakato's legs burned. Then the stairs ended and the whole city opened out below them like a green and red and silver blanket.

"Now," said Jjajja, a little out of breath. "Hill number one is under your feet. This is Kampala hill, where the first fort was built long ago. Before that, it was the Kabaka's hunting ground, and it was full of impala. Akasozi k'empala, the hill of the impala. That is where the whole city got its name."

Nakato held up one finger.

"Look there, with the palace and the long straight road." Jjajja pointed west. "Mengo. The Kabaka of Buganda has lived on that hill for longer than your great-great-grandmother was alive. Two."

Two fingers.

"The hill with the red-brick cathedral and the big dome?"

"Namirembe," said Jjajja. "Three. And the white one with the two towers across from it is Lubaga. Four. Those two cathedrals have been looking at each other across that valley for a hundred years, like old neighbours who cannot stop talking."

Nakato giggled. Four fingers.

"Turn around. That tall hill with the busy buildings and the big market is Nakasero, where the offices are. Five. Behind us, with the other mosque, is Kibuli. Six. And that one, with the hospital on top, is Nsambya. Seven."

Nakato looked at her seven fingers and then at the city. "But Jjajja, there are more. Look, there, and there, and there."

"Of course there are more," said Jjajja. "Makerere, where your uncle went to university. Kasubi, where the old kings sleep. Kololo, Muyenga, Naguru, Ntinda, Mulago. The city was born on seven hills, but a city is like a family. It does not stop at seven children. It keeps growing, and every new hill is still Kampala."

Nakato thought about that. "So the seven is the beginning, not the end."

"Exactly. The seven are the grandparents. The rest are the grandchildren." Jjajja rested a hand on Nakato's head. "And here is the real secret. Hills do not make a city. People do. Every hill you see is only Kampala because somebody built a house on it, planted a banana garden, opened a shop, taught a class, sold a rolex. Including you."

From the top of the minaret the sounds floated up: taxi conductors calling out destinations, a church bell, a thousand boda-boda engines. It sounded, Nakato thought, like a very large family having lunch.

Jjajja had a saying for it, one every Muganda child hears: Agali awamu ge galuma ennyama - teeth that stand together are the ones that chew the meat.

On the way down Nakato counted the stairs instead. There were far more than seven. When they reached the bottom she took her grandmother's hand and, without being asked, counted the hills again out loud, all the way home.