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Mbugwe Language
Mbugwe or Mbuwe (Kimbugwe) is a Bantu language spoken by the Mbugwe people of Lake Manyara in the Manyara Region of Central Tanzania. Mbugwe is estimated to be spoken by some 34,000 people. Mbugwe is isolated from other Bantu languages, being bordered by the locally dominant Cushitic language Iraqw to the west, the Gorowa language (or dialect of Iraqw) to the south, the Nilotic Maasai language to the east, and the lake to the north. It shares about 70% vocabulary with its Bantu cousin Rangi. Grammar As is common across Bantu languages, Mbugwe employs a system of noun classes. There are 16 noun classes. The subclasses 1a and 15a are also identified. The syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ... is head-initial with adjectives and other modifiers appearing after ...
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Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. According to a 2024 estimate, Tanzania has a population of around 67.5 million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator. Many important hominid fossils have been found in Tanzania. In the Stone and Bronze Age, prehistoric migrations into Tanzania included South Cushitic languages, Southern Cushitic speakers similar to modern day Iraqw people who moved south from present-day Ethiopia; Eastern Cushitic people who moved into Tanzania from north of Lake Turkana about 2,000 and 4,000 years ago; and the Southern Nilotic languages, Southern Nilotes, including the Datooga people, Datoog, who originated fro ...
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Manyara Region
Manyara Region (''Mkoa wa Manyara'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. The regional capital is the town of Babati. According to the 2012 national census, the region had a population of 1,425,131, which was lower than the pre-census projection of 1,497,555.Population Distribution by Administrative Units, United Republic of Tanzania, 2013
For 2002–2012, the region's 3.2 percent average annual population growth rate was tied for the third highest in the country. It was also the 22nd most densely populated region with 32 people per square kilometre. Lake Manyara is in the northern p ...
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Syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). Diverse approaches, such as generative grammar and functional grammar, offer unique perspectives on syntax, reflecting its complexity and centrality to understanding human language. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from the ancient Greek word , meaning an orderly or systematic arrangement, which consists of (''syn-'', "together" or "alike"), and (''táxis'', "arrangement"). In Hellenistic Greek, this also specifically developed a use referring to the grammatical order of words, with a slightly altered spelling: . The English term, which first appeared in 1548, is partly borrowed from Latin () and Greek, though the L ...
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Noun Classes
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", but others consider these different concepts. Noun classes should not be confused with noun classifiers. Notion There are three main ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into noun classes: * according to similarities in their meaning (semantic criterion); * by grouping them with other nouns that have similar form (morphology); * through an arbitrary convention. Usually, a combination of the three types of criteria is used, though one is more prevalent. Noun classes form a system of grammatical agreement. A noun in a given class may require: * agreement affixes on adjectives, pronouns, numerals, etc. in the same noun phrase, * agreement affixes on the ve ...
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Rangi Language
Rangi or Langi (native name: ) is a Bantu language spoken by the Rangi people of Kondoa District in the Dodoma Region of Central Tanzania. Whilst the language is known as Rangi in English and Kirangi in the dominant Swahili spoken throughout the African Great Lakes, the self-referent term is Kilaangi. Estimates at the number of Rangi-speakers range from 270,000 to 410,000 speakers. Rangi is the largest linguistic group in the Babati-Kondoa region. Two main varieties of Rangi are identified - that spoken in the Rangi Highlands (known in Swahili as Irangi ya Juu) and that of the Lowlands (Irangi ya Chini). Despite differences, these varieties are mutually intelligible. However, some dialectal variation is also found between the varieties spoken in the main town of Kondoa, as well as in the surrounding villages of Bereko, Bukulu, Isabe, Humai, Kwadinu, Kolo, Choka, Gubali, Nkuku, Bicha, Kingale, Kelema, Paranga, Kidoka, Haubi and Mondo. Grammar Rangi exhibits the basic head-ini ...
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Maasai Language
Maasai (previously spelled ''Masai'') or Maa ( ; autonym: ''ɔl Maa'') is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 1.5 million. It is closely related to the other Maa varieties: Samburu (or Sampur), the language of the Samburu people of central Kenya, Chamus, spoken south and southeast of Lake Baringo (sometimes regarded as a dialect of Samburu); and Parakuyu of Tanzania. The Maasai, Samburu, il-Chamus and Parakuyu peoples are historically related and all refer to their language as . Properly speaking, "Maa" refers to the language and the culture and "Maasai" refers to the people "who speak Maa". Phonology The Maasai variety of as spoken in southern Kenya and Tanzania has 30 contrasting phonemes, including a series of implosive consonants. In Maasai, tone has a very productive role, conveying a wide range of grammatical and semantic functions. Consonants In the table of consonant phonemes bel ...
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Gorowa Language
Gorowa is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Dodoma and Manyara Regions. It is also known as Fiome, Goroa, Gorwaa, Kimbulu, Ufiomi. As of 2014, an estimated 79,000 people (approx. 60% of the ethnic population) use this language on a daily basis. Older Gorwaa speakers in rural areas tend to be enthusiastic about their language and have contributed to a large body of data including songs, traditional stories, uncommon vocabulary, etc. Younger Gorwaa in urban areas view the language as less useful and may be reticent to speak it. Some use the exonym Mbulu (from a large Iraqw settlement) and say they speak Kimbulu; however, this is still the Gorwaa language. Codeswitching with Swahili is ubiquitous. Young speakers involved in documentation of Gorwaa have become researchers and assumed ownership of the project. Instances of Gorwaa writing are rare, and show a great variety of non-standard spellings. It is common to use the orthography of Iraqw for Gorwaa written communica ...
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Iraqw Language
Iraqw () is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Arusha Region, Arusha and Manyara Region, Manyara Regions. It is expanding in numbers as the Iraqw people absorb neighbouring ethnic groups. The language has many Datooga language, Datooga loanwords, especially in poetic language. The Gorowa language, to the south, shares numerous similarities and is sometimes considered a dialect. Phonology Vowels Whiteley (1958) lists the following vowel phonemes for Iraqw. All of the vowels except /ə/ occur in both short and long versions: can be heard as within the environment of pharyngeal consonants. Consonants Whiteley (1958) and Mous (1993) list the following consonants: In the popular orthography for Iraqw used in Lutheran and Catholic materials as well as in collections of traditional Iraqw stories and academic literature (e.g. Nordbustad 1988 and Mous 1993), the majority of the orthography follows the Swahili language, Swahili orthography with the addition of x and q ...
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Lake Manyara
Lake Manyara also known as Lake Moya among the Iraqw people is a lake located in Monduli District of Arusha Region, Tanzania and is the seventh-largest lake of Tanzania by surface area, at . It is a shallow, alkaline lake in the Natron-Manyara-Balangida branch of the East African Rift The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. It was formerly considered to be part of a l .... The northwest quadrant of the lake (about 200 sq, km.) is included within Lake Manyara National Park and it is part of the Lake Manyara Biosphere Reserve, established in 1981 by UNESCO as part of its Man and the Biosphere Programme. There are differing explanations for how Lake Manyara got its name. The name Manyara may come from the Maasai word "emanyara", which is the spiky, protective enclosure around a family homestead (boma). Possibly the 6 ...
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Mbugwe People
The Mbugwe are a Bantu ethnic group based in the Babati District of Manyara Region and in southwestern Arusha Region of Tanzania. The Mbugwe are said to have originated from the Rangi and they speak a language that is related to Rangi. In 1999, the Mbugwe population was estimated to number 24,000.Ethnologue''Languages of Tanzania'' accessed September 8, 2011. They speak the Mbugwe language, the following are places where Mbugwe tribe at the Manyara region are distributed in Mwada, Magugu, Babati etc. References See also * Mbugwe language * Arusha Region * Manyara Region Manyara Region (''Mkoa wa Manyara'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. The regional capital is the town of Babati. According to the 2012 national census, the region had a population ... * Babati Ethnic groups in Tanzania Babati District Indigenous peoples of Arusha Region Indigenous peoples of East Africa {{Tanzania-ethno-grou ...
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Bantu Language
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages, depending on the definition of Dialect#Dialect or language, "language" versus "dialect"."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". ...
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