Ngoni is a
Bantu language of Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique. There is a 'hard break' across the Tanzanian–Mozambican border, with marginal mutual intelligibility. It is one of several languages of the
Ngoni people
The Ngoni people are an ethnic group living in the present-day Southern African countries of Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. The Ngoni trace their origins to the Nguni and Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The d ...
, who descend from the
Nguni people of southern Africa, and the language is a member of the
Nguni subgroup, with the variety spoken in Malawi sometimes referred to as a dialect of
Zulu.
[Gowlett, D. (2003) "Zone S" in ''The Bantu Languages'' (eds. Derek Nurse and Gerard Phillippson), p. 735.] Other languages spoken by the Ngoni may also be referred to as "Chingoni"; many Ngoni in Malawi, for instance, speak
Chewa
Chewa may refer to:
*the Chewa people
*the Chewa language
Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambiq ...
, and other Ngoni speak
Tumbuka or
Nsenga.
References
{{Authority control
Languages of Tanzania
Ngoni language