Chichewa
| Chichewa | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Malawi , Zambia , Zimbabwe and Mozambique | |
| speaker | 10 million native speakers and 3 million second speakers | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Official status | ||
| Official language in |
 Malawi
|
|
| Recognized minority / regional language in |
 Zambia
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
ny |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
nya |
|
| ISO 639-3 | ||
Chichewa ( ChiChewa : language of the Chewa ; also: ChiNyanja : language of the Nyanja in Zambia ; also simplified: Chewa or Nyanja ) is the official language of Malawi alongside English and is spoken there by 50% of the population as their mother tongue. Chichewa has been the official language in Zimbabwe since 2013.
Chichewa belongs to the family of Bantu languages , which are widely spoken in central and southern Africa . Chichewa is also in eastern Zambia (12% of the Zambian population, there as a regional minority language) and bordering Malawi areas of Mozambique spoken (10% of Mozambique's population) as their first language - particularly in the provinces of Tete and Niassa , where she Chisena is . Approx. 1 million speakers live in Zimbabwe . Between 1850 and 1860, Johannes Rebmann compiled a comprehensive dictionary of English Kiniassa (Kiniassa is synonymous with ChiNyanja). This dictionary was published in 1877 by his colleague Ludwig Krapf. The creation of this dictionary was possible due to the large number of slaves who were abducted from the Malawi and Zambia areas and who were partly ransomed by the missionaries. At the end of the 19th century there was a Latin- based writing based on the Mang'anja dialect, later based on the Chewa dialect.
literature
- Steven Paas: Dictionary / Mtanthauziramawu. English - Chichewa / Chinyanja // Chichewa / Chinyanja - English. 3rd edition, VTR Publications, Piacenza 2012, ISBN 978-3-941750-87-6
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Constitution of Zimbabwe at constituteproject.org (English; PDF), accessed on October 15, 2016