Chichewa language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chichewa Chicheŵa
Spoken in:	Malawi Mozambique Zambia Zimbabwe
Total speakers:	9.3 million
Language family:	Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Narrow Bantu Central North Chichewa
Official status
Official language in:	Malawi
Regulated by:	unknown
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	`ny`
ISO 639-2:	`nya`
ISO 639-3:	`nya`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Chichewa (Chicheŵa in Malawian English, also known as C(h)inyanja) is a language of the Bantu language family widely spoken in south-central Africa. The prefix chi- means "the language of" so that "Chichewa" means "language of the Chewa tribe", and hence the language is also known simply as Chewa.

[edit] Distribution

Chichewa is one of the two official national languages of the Republic of Malawi, the other being English, and as Chinyanja is one of the seven official tribal languages of Zambia, where it is spoken mostly in the Eastern Province and in Lusaka. It is also spoken in Mozambique, especially in the provinces of Tete and Niassa, as well as in Zimbabwe where, according to some estimates, it ranks as the third most widely used local language, after Shona and Ndebele. The countries of Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique constitute the central location of Chichewa.

[edit] History

Chichewa has its origin in the Maravi Empire, which dominated most of present day Malawi and part of Mozambique and Zambia from the 15th century to the 18th century. The language remained dominant despite the breakup of the empire and the Angoni invasions and was adopted by Christian missionaries at the beginning of the colonial period.

The Chewa are a tribe found near Lake Malawi, and hence chicheŵa means "the language of the Chewas". In Zambia, where Chewa is also spoken by other tribes like the Ngoni and the Kunda, the more neutral name c(h)inyanja, "language of the lake" (referring to Lake Malawi), is hence used instead.

The first grammar - A grammar of the Chinyanja language as spoken at Lake Nyasa with Chinyanja-English and English-Chinyanja vocabulary was written by Alexander in 1880 and partial translations of the Bible were made at the end of 19th century

ChiChewa can also be classed as a Shona dialect as most scholars in the region point out. As a strong historic link of the Nyanja, Bemba and Yao people, to the ancient Shona empire, who can point their earlier origins to Mashonaland, proves linguistically evident today. The ancient Shonas who temporarily dwelt in Malambo, a place in the DRC, eventually shifted into northern Zambia, and then south and east into the highlands of Malawi. The Chinyanja language, ChiChewa or Chewa, emerged as a distinct tongue in the sixteenth century, according to scholars. In the twentieth century, the Chewa vocabulary and grammar is similar with Shona dialects, which are spoken in Zimbabwe, especially Zezuru and Manyika.