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Tonga Language (Malawi)
Tonga (native name Chitonga) is a Bantu language spoken mainly in the Nkhata Bay District of Malawi. The number of speakers is estimated to be 170,000. According to the Mdawuku wa Atonga (MWATO) (formerly the Nkhata Bay Tonga Heritage) there are also significant numbers of speakers living elsewhere in Malawi and in neighbouring countries. The Tonga language of Malawi is described as "similar" to Tumbuka, and Turner's dictionary (1952) lists only those words which differ from the Tumbuka, with the added comment that "the Tonga folk, being rapid speakers, slur or elide the final syllable of many words, e.g. ''kulira'' becomes ''kuliya'', ''kukura'' becomes ''kukuwa'', ''kutoa'' becomes ''kuto’''." Tonga (Nyasa), i.e. Malawian Tonga, is grouped in the Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at ...
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Malawi
Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south and southwest. Malawi spans over and has an estimated population of 19,431,566 (as of January 2021). Malawi's capital (and largest city) is Lilongwe. Its second-largest is Blantyre, its third-largest is Mzuzu and its fourth-largest is its former capital, Zomba. The name ''Malawi'' comes from the Maravi, an old name for the Chewa people who inhabit the area. The country is nicknamed "The Warm Heart of Africa" because of the friendliness of its people. The part of Africa now known as Malawi was settled around the 10th century by migrating Bantu groups . Centuries later, in 1891, the area was colonised by the British and became a protectorate of the United Kingdom known as Nyasaland. In 1953, it ...
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Tonga People Of Malawi
The Tonga (also called ''Batonga, Lake Shore Tonga'' or ''Nyasa Tonga'') are an ethnic group living in northern Malawi on the shores of Lake Malawi in Nkhata Bay and northern part of Nkhotakota. Their language and Tonga people of Zambia and Zimbabwe belong to different branches of the Bantu family. History Tradition says the Tonga came from the north, perhaps from the Maravi people or the Tumbuka. Until the coming of the Ngoni in 1855, they had been a matrilineal people and possessed a decentralized government. The Tonga were constantly raided by the Ngoni, mostly for food, women and young men. The young were incorporated into the Ngoni fighting regiments. The population of high ranking Atonga warriors among the Angoni impis grew and this terrified the Angoni who saw this as a threat. A plot was hatched to exterminate the Atonga older folk. The Atonga,led by Chinyentha, had uncovered the plot and revolted, before the operation was executed. The Angoni sent impis to pursue the fle ...
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Atlantic–Congo Languages
The Atlantic–Congo languages are the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from Mande, Dogon, Ijoid, Siamou, Kru, the Katla and Rashad languages (previously classified as Kordofanian), and perhaps some or all of the Ubangian languages. Mukarovsky's West-Nigritic corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo. In the infobox, the languages which appear to be the most divergent are placed at the top.Roger BlenchNiger-Congo: an alternative view/ref> The Atlantic branch is defined in the narrow sense, while the former Atlantic branches Mel and the isolates Sua, Gola and Limba, are split out as primary branches; they are mentioned next to each other because there is no published evidence to move them; Volta–Congo is intact apart from Senufo and Kru. In addition, Güldemann (2018) lists Nalu and Rio Nunez Nun ...
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Benue–Congo Languages
Benue–Congo (sometimes called East Benue–Congo) is a major branch of the Volta-Congo languages which covers most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Subdivisions Central Nigerian (or Platoid) contains the Plateau, Jukunoid and Kainji families, and Bantoid–Cross combines the Bantoid and Cross River groups. Bantoid is only a collective term for every subfamily of Bantoid–Cross except Cross River, and this is no longer seen as forming a valid branch, however one of the subfamilies, Southern Bantoid, is still considered valid. It is Southern Bantoid which contains the Bantu languages, which are spoken across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. This makes Benue–Congo one of the largest subdivisions of the Niger–Congo language family, both in number of languages, of which '' Ethnologue'' counts 976 (2017), and in speakers, numbering perhaps 350 million. Benue–Congo also includes a few minor isolates in the Nigeria–Cameroon region, but their exact relationship is uncertain. The neighbou ...
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Bantoid Languages
Bantoid is a major branch of the Benue–Congo language family. It consists of the Northern Bantoid languages and the Southern Bantoid languages, a division which also includes the Bantu languages that constitute the overwhelming majority and to which Bantoid is named after. History The term "Bantoid" was first used by Krause in 1895 for languages that showed resemblances in vocabulary to Bantu. Joseph Greenberg, in his 1963 ''The Languages of Africa'', defined Bantoid as the group to which Bantu belongs together with its closest relatives; this is the sense in which the term is still used today. However, according to Roger Blench, the Bantoid languages probably do not actually form a coherent group. Internal classification A proposal that divided Bantoid into North Bantoid and South Bantoid was introduced by Williamson. In this proposal, the Mambiloid and Dakoid languages (and later Tikar) are grouped together as North Bantoid, while everything else Bantoid is subsumed under ...
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Bantu Languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages."Guthrie (1967-71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". For Bantuic, Linguasphere has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages ...
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Nyasa Languages
The Nyasa languages are an apparently valid genealogical group of Bantu languages. With the reassignment of a couple of Guthrie Zone N languages to other branches, Nyasa is essentially synonymous with Zone N. The languages and their Guthrie identifications are: * '' Tumbuka'' (N21) * ''Tonga language (Malawi)'' (N15) * ''Chewa'' (''Nyanja'') (N31) * ''Sena'' group (N40): ''Chikunda''-'' Nyungwe'' (N42, N43), ''Sena Sena may refer to: Places * Sanandaj or Sena, city in northwestern Iran * Sena (state constituency), represented in the Perlis State Legislative Assembly * Sena, Dashtestan, village in Bushehr Province, Iran * Sena, Huesca, municipality in Hue ...'' (incl. ''Podzo'', ''Rue'') (N44) The poorly known Mwera (Nyasa) language spoken at Mbamba Bay on the east side of Lake Malawi is classified as N201 and presumably belongs here as well. References {{Bantu-lang-stub ...
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Bantu Language
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages."Guthrie (1967-71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". For Bantuic, Linguasphere has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages ...
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Nkhata Bay District
Nkhata Bay is a district in the Northern Region of Malawi. The capital is Nkhata Bay. The district covers an area of 4,071 km.² and has a population of 164,761. Lake Malawi bounds the district on the east. The western portion of the district lies in the Viphya Mountains. Nkhata Bay District houses the charity grouRipple Africain Mwaya and the charity Temwa, in Usisya. Government and administrative divisions There are six National Assembly constituencies in Nkhata Bay: * Nkhata Bay - Central * Nkhata Bay - North * Nkhata Bay - North West * Nkhata Bay - South * Nkhata Bay - South East * Nkhata Bay - West Demographics At the time of the 2018 Census of Malawi, the distribution of the population of Nkhata Bay District by ethnic group was as follows: * 66.2% Tonga * 9.7% Tumbuka * 6.6% Chewa * 1.3% Lomwe * 1.2% Nkhonde * 1.1% Ngoni * 0.9% Yao * 0.7% Sukwa * 0.7% Lambya * 0.2% Mang'anja * 0.2% Nyanja * 0.2% Sena * 1.2% Others Culture Nkhata Bay is populated by the ...
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Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It was first issued in 1951, and is now published by SIL International, an American Christian non-profit organization. Overview and content ''Ethnologue'' has been published by SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization with an international office in Dallas, Texas. The organization studies numerous minority languages to facilitate language development, and to work with speakers of such language communities in translating portions of the Bible into their languages. Despite the Christian orientation of its publisher, ''Ethnologue'' isn't ideologically or theologically biased. ''Ethnologue'' includes alternative names and autonyms, t ...
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Tumbuka Language
The Tumbuka language is a Bantu language which is spoken in the Northern Region of Malawi and Zambia in the districts of Lundazi, Lumezi, and Chasefu.Michigan State University African Studies Center information page
It is also known as or — the ''chi-'' prefix in front of ''Tumbuka'' means "in the manner of", and is understood in this case to mean "the language of the ". Tumbuka belongs to the same language group ( Guthrie Zone N) as



Glottolog
''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany). Its main curators include Harald Hammarström and Martin Haspelmath. Overview Sebastian Nordhoff and Harald Hammarström created the Glottolog/Langdoc project in 2011. The creation of ''Glottolog'' was partly motivated by the lack of a comprehensive language bibliography, especially in ''Ethnologue''. Glottolog provides a catalogue of the world's languages and language families and a bibliography on the world's less-spoken languages. It differs from the similar catalogue ''Ethnologue'' in several respects: * It tries to accept only those languages that the editors have been able to confirm both exist and are distinct. Varieties that have not been confirmed, but are inherited from a ...
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