Kwanyama language
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Kwanyama or Cuanhama is a
national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
of
Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...
and
Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
. It is a standardized dialect of the
Ovambo language The Ovambo () language is a dialect cluster spoken by the Ovambo people in southern Angola and northern Namibia, of which the written standards are Kwanyama and Ndonga. The native name for the language is ''Oshiwambo'' (also written ''Oshi ...
, and is mutually intelligible with Oshindonga, the other Ovambo dialect with a standard written form. The entire Christian Bible has been translated into Kwanyama and was first published in 1974 under the name ''Ombibeli'' by the South African Bible Society. Jehovah’s Witnesses released the modern translation of the
new testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...
, the ''New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures'' in Kwanyama in 2019, both printed an
electronic online version


Phonology

/t/ and /d/ are dentalized when followed by a front vowel /i/. An /s/ sound can only occur in loanwords.


References


Bibliography

* * *


Further reading

*Turvey, B. H. C. (1977) ''Kwanyama-English Dictionary''; compiled by B. H. C. Turvey; edited by W. Zimmermann and G. B. Taapopi. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press (based on the work compiled by George Tobias & Basil Henry Capes Turvey, 1954)


External links


Language map of Namibia



PanAfrican L10n page on Kwanyama

Omalinjongameno Ōngeleka. (Services of the Church in Kwanyama Authorised for Use in the Diocese of Damaraland, 1957)
digitized by Richard Mammana 2015 Ovambo language Languages of Namibia Languages of Angola {{Namibia-stub