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Tswa–Ronga Languages
The Tswa–Ronga languages (or just Tsonga) are a group of closely related Southern Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa chiefly in southern Mozambique, northeastern South Africa and southeastern Zimbabwe. Languages The group is divided into three main languages: * Tswa–Ronga ** Tswa (''Xitswa''): Hlengwe (Khambana-Makwakwe, Khambani, Lengwe, Lhengwe, Makwakwe-Khambana, Shilengwe), Tshwa (Dzibi-Dzonga, Dzivi, Dzonga-Dzibi, Xidzivi), Mandla, Ndxhonge, Nhayi. Partially intelligible with Ronga ngand Tsonga so ** Ronga (''Xironga''): Konde, Putru, Kalanga. Partially intelligible with Tsonga soand Tswa sc ** Tsonga (''Xitsonga''): Luleke (Xiluleke), Gwamba (Gwapa), Changana (Xichangana), Hlave, Kande, N’walungu (Shingwalungu), Xonga (Ssonga), Jonga (Dzonga), Nkuna, Songa, Nhlanganu (Shihlanganu). "Tsonga" is used to refer to all three languages, although often used interchangeably with Changana, the most prestigious of the three. All are recognized as languages, althou ...
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Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Africa to the south and southwest. The sovereign state is separated from the Comoros, Mayotte, and Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo. Between the 7th and 11th centuries, a series of Swahili port towns developed on that area, which contributed to the development of a distinct Swahili culture and dialect. In the late medieval period, these towns were frequented by traders from Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and India. The voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1498 marked the arrival of the Portuguese Empire, Portuguese, who began a gradual process of colonisation and settlement in 1505. After over four centuries of Portuguese Mozambique, Portuguese rule, Mozambique Mozambican War of Indepen ...
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Tswa Language
Tswa (''Xitswa'') is a South-Eastern Bantu language in Southern Mozambique. Its closest relatives are Ronga and Tsonga, the three forming the Tswa–Ronga family of languages. Tswa is mainly spoken in the rural areas west of Inhambane. Its largest dialect, Hlengwe, extends westwards to Southern Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...; Maho (2009) considers this to be a distinct language. The other principal dialects are Dzibi (Dzivi) and Dzonga. According to some estimates, there are perhaps more than one million BaTswa, however not all can communicate in Tswa. Many Mozambicans, including census takers, regard it as a dialect of Tsonga. Alphabet Tswa uses a variant of the Latin alphabet previously used for Tsonga. It is partly based on those developed by ...
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Languages Of Mozambique
Mozambique is a multilingual country. A number of Bantu languages are indigenous to Mozambique. Mozambican Portuguese, Portuguese, inherited from the colonial period (''see: Portuguese Mozambique''), is the official language, and Mozambique is a full member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. ''Ethnologue'' lists 43 languages spoken in the country. According to INE, the National Institute of Statistics (Mozambique), National Institute of Statistics of Mozambique, Portuguese is the most widely spoken language in Mozambique: according to the 2007 national population and housing census, 50.4% of the national population aged 5 and older (80.8% of people living in urban areas and 36.3% in rural areas) are fluent in the language. The 2017 national population and housing census found out that Portuguese is spoken by 47.4% of all Mozambicans aged 5 and older, with native speakers making up 16.6% of the population (38.3% in the cities and 5.1% in rural areas, respectively). ...
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Retroflex Ejective Affricate
The retroflex ejective affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , though it is frequently simplified to or . Features Features of the retroflex ejective affricate: Occurrence See also * List of phonetic topics A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ... References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Retroflex Ejective Affricate Affricates Ejectives Retroflex consonants Oral consonants Central consonants ...
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Retroflex Consonant
A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants—especially in Indology. The Latin-derived word ''retroflex'' means "bent back"; some retroflex consonants are pronounced with the tongue fully curled back so that articulation involves the underside of the tongue tip ( subapical). These sounds are sometimes described as "true" retroflex consonants. However, retroflexes are commonly taken to include other consonants having a similar place of articulation without such extreme curling of the tongue; these may be articulated with the tongue tip ( apical) or the tongue blade ( laminal). When apical, they have been called apico-domal consonants. Types Retroflex consonants, like other coronal consonants, come in several varieties, depending on the shape of the tongue. The tongue may be ...
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Grapheme
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes is called '' graphemics''. The concept of graphemes is abstract and similar to the notion in computing of a character. (A specific geometric shape that represents any particular grapheme in a given typeface is called a glyph.) Conceptualization There are two main opposing grapheme concepts. In the so-called ''referential conception'', graphemes are interpreted as the smallest units of writing that correspond with sounds (more accurately phonemes). In this concept, the ''sh'' in the written English word ''shake'' would be a grapheme because it represents the phoneme /ʃ/. This referential concept is linked to the ''dependency hypothesis'' that claims that writing merely depicts speech. By contrast, the ''analogical concept'' defines gr ...
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Zulu Language
Zulu ( ), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu languages, Southern Bantu language of the Nguni languages, Nguni branch spoken in, and indigenous to, Southern Africa. Nguni dialects are regional or social varieties of the Nguni language, distinguished by vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and other linguistic features. So, Zulu is one of the Nguni dialects which is spoken by the Zulu people, with about 13.56 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The word "KwaZulu-Natal" translates into English as "Home of the Zulu Nation is Natal". Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population), and it is understood by over 50% of its population. It became one of languages of South Africa, South Africa's 12 official languages in 1994. According to Ethnologue, it is the second-most widely spoken of the Bantu languages, after Swahili language, Swahili. Like many other Bantu languages, it is written ...
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Ditema Tsa Dinoko
Ditema tsa Dinoko (), also known as isiBheqe soHlamvu (), and sometimes known as Xiyinhlanharhu xa Mipfawulo or Xifungho xa Manungu in Tsonga language, xiTsonga and Luṱhofunḓeraru lwa Mibvumo or Vhuga ha Madungo in Venda language, tshiVenḓa , is a featural syllable-based writing system constructed writing system, created for the Southern Bantu, ''siNtu languages'' (Southern Bantu languages, Ntu Languages). It was developed from the preeminent ideographic traditions of Southern Africa, including ''litema'' mural art of Lesotho, the related Southern Ndebele people, isiNdebele tradition of Ndebele house painting, ''ukugwala'' ("to write", "to draw", "to paint traditional ideographic mural art"), and other symbolic crafts, like the regional beadwork containing ideograms and Morphogram, morphograms, which in Zulu language, isiZulu tradition are called ''amabheqe''. no proposal has been made to encode the script in Unicode. The script is designed for the phonologies of the ''s ...
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Tsonga Language
Tsonga ( ) or Xitsonga as an endonym and exonym, endonym (also known as Changana in Mozambique), is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken by the Tsonga people of South Africa and . It is mutually intelligible with Tswa language, Tswa and Ronga language, Ronga and the name "Tsonga" is often used as a cover term for all three, also sometimes referred to as Tswa-Ronga. The Xitsonga language has been standardised as a written language. Tsonga is an official language of the Republic of South Africa, and under the name ''Shangani'' it is recognised as an official language in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. All Tswa-Ronga languages are recognised in Mozambique. It is not official in Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Language Description by Europeans The first records of studies of Xitsonga by Europeans go back the Switzerland, Swiss missionary, Henri-Alexandre Junod, who between the years 1890 and 1920 hypothesised that the Xitsonga language (which he called the ''Thon ...
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Ronga Language
Ronga (XiRonga; sometimes ShiRonga or GiRonga) is a Bantu language of the Tswa–Ronga branch spoken just south of Maputo in Mozambique. It extends a little into South Africa. 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 as provided by Methodist missionaries and Portuguese settlers. Grammar Ronga is grammatically so close to 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 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) ... in many ways that census officials have often considered it a dialect; its noun class system is very similar and it ...
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Southern Bantu Languages
The Southern Bantu or siNtu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92).Tore Janson (1991-92) "Southern Bantu and Makua", ''Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika'' (''SUGIA'') Vol. 12/13: 63-106, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologn/ref> They are nearly synonymous with Guthrie's '' Guthrie classification of Bantu languages, Bantu zone S'', apart from the debated exclusion of Shona and inclusion of Makhuwa. They include all of the major Bantu languages of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique, with outliers such as Lozi in Zambia and Namibia, and Ngoni in Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi. Languages Language groups are followed by their code in the Guthrie classification. Makhuwa languages are included in this tree. *Southern Bantu languages ** Makua (P30) *** Makhuwa *** Koti *** Sakati (Nathembo) *** Lomwe *** Chuwabu *** Moniga ** Chopi (S60) *** Chopi *** Guitonga **Nguni languages (S40) ***Zunda **** Xhosa **** Zulu ****Ndeb ...
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