Ronga (XiRonga; sometimes ShiRonga or GiRonga) is a

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 ...

of the Tswa–Ronga branch spoken just south of

Maputo Maputo (), formerly named Lourenço Marques until 1976, is the capital, and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088 ...

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

. It extends a little into

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. It has about 650,000 speakers in Mozambique and a further 90,000 in South Africa, with dialects including Konde, Putru and Kalanga. The Swiss philologist Henri Alexandre Junod seems to have been the first linguist to have studied it, in the late 19th century.

Phonology

Alphabet

Its alphabet is similar to that of

Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (born 1985), French tennis player See also * ...

as provided by

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

missionaries and Portuguese settlers.

Grammar

Ronga is grammatically so close to

in many ways that census officials have often considered it a dialect; its noun class system is very similar and its verbal forms are almost identical. Its most immediately noticeable difference is a much greater influence from Portuguese, due to being centred near the capital Maputo (formerly Lourenço Marques).

Literature

The first book to be published in Ronga was the Gospel of John translated mainly by Henri Berthoud from the . It was published by the

British and Foreign Bible Society The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world. The So ...

in 1896. Further translation was done by Pierre Loze from Mission Romande (Swiss Romande Mission) and H.L. Bishop (Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society), assisted by Jeremia Caetano and Efraim Hely. The New Testament was published in 1903, and the whole Bible was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1923.

References

Languages of Mozambique Tswa-Ronga languages Click languages {{Mozambique-stub