The Zigula or Zigua language, ''Chizigua'', is a

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, South ...

of Tanzania and Somalia, where the Mushunguli (or Mushungulu) dialect is spoken.

Mushunguli

The Mushunguli or Mushungulu dialect is spoken by about 34,000 people from the Bantu ethnic minority of southern Somalia, in

Jamaame Jamame (, , , formerly ''Villaggio Regina Margherita''), also spelled Giamame, is a town in the southern Lower Juba (Jubbada Hoose) region of Somalia. There are many farms located near Jamame. The equator passes over the town. Overview Jamame is ...

Kismayo Kismayo (, , ; ) is a port city in the southern Lower Juba (Jubbada Hoose) province of Somalia. It is the commercial capital of the autonomous Jubaland region. The city is situated southwest of the capital Mogadishu, near the mouth of the Jub ...

Mogadishu Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...

, and the

Juba River The Jubba River or Juba River (, ) is a river in southern Somalia which flows through the region of Jubaland. It begins at the border with Ethiopia, where the Dawa and Ganale Dorya rivers meet, and flows directly south to the Somali Sea, where ...

valley.Ethnologue – Mushungulu
/ref> Mushunguli shows affinities with adjacent Bantu varieties. In particular, it shares strong lexical and grammatical similarities with the language of the Zigua people who inhabit

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 t ...

, one of the areas in south-eastern Africa where many Bantu in Somalia are known to have been captured from as slaves during the 19th century.Refugee Reports November 2002 Volume 23, Number 8

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

notes that the Mushunguli in Tanzania are the '' Wazegua''. Many Mushunguli Bantu men also speak as working languages the

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

Maay and Somali languages of their Somali neighbors.

Phonology

There is no official or traditional

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

for Mushunguli. However, spelling practices from related Bantu languages can easily be adopted to render the language with minimal phonetic

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

Vowels

Consonants

The

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

and freely vary with and , respectively.

Tone

Vowel length is not distinctive, but phonetic length is especially associated with falling tones as in ''chîga'' 'leg'. The tone system is similar to that of Tanzanian Zigua.Kenstowicz, Michael. & Charles Kisseberth. 1990. Chizigula tonology: the word and beyond. In S. Inkelas & D. Zec(eds) ''The phonology-syntax connection'', pp. 163-194. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Notes

External links

Zigula dictionary
{{Authority control Northeast Coast Bantu languages