Bravanese, also called Chimwiini (ChiMwini, Mwiini, Mwini) or Chimbalazi[3] is a variety of Swahili spoken by the Bravanese people, who are the predominant inhabitants of Barawa, or Brava, in Somalia.[4] Maho (2009) considers it a distinct dialect, and it has been classified as a Northern Dialect of Swahili.[5] However, it strongly distinguishes itself from standard Swahili under all linguistic considerations.[6]
Bravanese | |
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Mwiini | |
Chimwiini | |
Native to | Somalia |
Native speakers | 183,000 (2015)[1] |
Language family | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | (included in swh) |
Glottolog | chim1312 |
G.412 [2] | |
ELP | Mwini |
Due to the ongoing Somali Civil War, most speakers have left the region and are scattered throughout the world in ex-refugee immigrant communities in places such as Columbus and Atlanta in the United States, London and Manchester in the United Kingdom, and Mombasa, Kenya. It has fewer than 15,000 speakers.[7]
Bravanese may have once served as a regional lingua franca due to the key coastal location of Barawa. One piece of linguistic evidence for this comes from morphological reduction. For example, it has a three-way tense system, which is simpler than that of neighboring Bantu dialects historically spoken in Somalia.[5]
Languages of Somalia | |
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Official languages | |
Regional languages | |
Foreign languages | |
Immigrant languages | |
Sign languages |
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Note: The Guthrie classification is geographic and its groupings do not imply a relationship between the languages within them. |
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