| Nambya | |
|---|---|
| Nanzva | |
| Native to | Zimbabwe, Botswana |
| Ethnicity | Nambya people |
Native speakers | 100,000 (2000–2004) [1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Zimbabwe (both Kalanga and Nambya) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
nmq – Nambya |
| Glottolog |
namb1291 |
| ELP | Nambya |
Nambya, or Nanzwa/Nanzva, is a Bantu language spoken by the Nambya people. It is spoken in northwestern Zimbabwe, particularly in the town of Hwange, [2] [3] with a few speakers in northeastern Botswana. It is either classified as a dialect of Kalanga or as a closely related language. [4] The Zimbabwean constitution, in particular the Education Act, as amended in 1990, recognises Nambya and Kalanga as separate indigenous languages. [4]
Phonology
Nambya is a tonal language. It has a simple 5 vowel system and a typical Bantu consonant-vowel (CV) syllable structure. The language has onsetless syllables, but these are restricted to the word-initial position, making Nambya typical of the Southern Bantu languages. [4]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Morphology
Like many Bantu languages, Nambya has a highly agglutinative morphology. [4]
References
-
^
Nambya at
Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Ndhlovu, Finex (2009-01-01). The Politics of Language and Nation Building in Zimbabwe. Peter Lang. p. 54. ISBN 9783039119424.
- ^ Kamwangamalu, Nkonko; Baldauf, Richard B. Jr.; Kaplan, Robert B. (2016-04-08). Language Planning in Africa: The Cameroon, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Routledge. p. 220. ISBN 9781134916887.
- ^
a
b
c
d Kadenge, Maxwell, D.Phil. (March 2010).
"Some Segmental Phonological Processes Involving Vowels in Nambya: A Preliminary Descriptive Account" (PDF).
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