It's something like "have a special day" literally, but it means "happy birthday!"
Hongera! or Heri ya Siku kuu!The phrase above means literally, and commonly, congratulations on the important day (i.e., holiday, not birthday). Instead, people use the English and say, Heri ya birthday.
Heri ya Siku ya Baba
Blessed be the wedding of ,...
Heri ya mwaka mpya
To say the equivalent of Merry Christmas in Swahili, you would say Misa ya Christman. It is almost a direct transliteration from English.
Heri kwa sikukuu ya Pasaka
Kuwa na Krismasi njema or Heri ya Krismas
No real difference except that Kuwa na Krismasi njema is exceptionally bad Swahili. It's intended to mean "Have a nice Christmas," but kuwa na is wrong: would be Uwe na, etc. However, even uwe na would never be used; the phrase is not idiomatic Swahil.In standard Swahili, Krismasi njema and Heri ya Krismasi are both commonly used as Christmas greetings and mean exactly the same thing: Christmas blessings (Happy Christmas, Merry Christmas).
Hussein Bashir Abdallah has written: 'Jihadi kuu ya Maji Maji, 1905-1907'
There are no real words for anniversary and birthday in Swahili. The following two options could work:Furaha ya sikukuu yenu = joy on your (pl.) special dayHeri ya sikukuu yenu = blessings on your special dayIn practice though, many Swahili speakers use the English word "anniversary":Heri ya anniversaryFurthermore, birthday can be expressed as siku ya kuzaliwa (day of birth), but most people use the Engish. Heri ya birthday, blessings on your birthday, equivalent to English happy birthday.
Yes, "ya ya" can mean grandma in Greek.
wha do ya mean???