Kalanga[pronunciation?], or TjiKalanga (in Zimbabwe), is a Bantu language spoken by the Kalanga people in Botswana and Zimbabwe. It has an extensive phoneme inventory, which includes palatalised, velarised, aspirated and breathy-voiced consonants,[3] as well as whistled sibilants.
Kalanga | |
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Ikalanga/TjiKalanga | |
Native to | Zimbabwe, Botswana |
Region | SouthWest parts of Zimbabwe Central, North Central and NorthEast Botswana |
Ethnicity | Kalanga people |
Native speakers | 1.1 million users of the language in Zimbabwe 500,000 users of the language in Botswana. (2012-2015)[1] |
Language family | |
Official status | |
Official language in | ![]() |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Either:kck – Kalanganmq – Nambya |
Glottolog | kala1405 |
S.16 [2] | |
Linguasphere | 99-AUT-ai |
Kalanga is recognised as an official language by the Zimbabwean Constitution of 2013 and is taught in schools in areas where its speakers predominate.The iKalanga language is closely related to the Nambya, TshiVenda, and KheLobedu languages of Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Linguists place Kalanga (S.16 in Guthrie's classification) and Nambya (in the Hwange region of Zimbabwe) as the western branch of the Shona group (or Shonic, or Shona-Nyai) group of languages, collectively coded as S.10.
Kalanga has a dialectal variation between its Botswana and Zimbabwean varieties and they use slightly different orthographies. Historically, Wentzel mentioned Kalanga proper in the east and Lilima (Tjililima, Humbe) on the west, as well as varieties that are now rare or extinct: Nyai (Rozvi), Lemba (Remba), Lembethu (Rembethu), Twamamba (Xwamamba), Pfumbi, Jaunda (Jawunda, Jahunda), and †Romwe, †Peri, †Talahundra (Talaunda).[2][4]
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | alveolar | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | ||||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪ | (tʷ) | k | kʷ | |||||||
voiced | b | d̪ | d | dʷ | ɡ | ɡʷ | |||||||
prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡʷ | |||||||||
aspirated | pʰ | t̪ʰ | tʰ | tʰʷ | kʰ | kʰʷ | |||||||
breathy | pʱ | tʱ | kʷʱ | ||||||||||
ejective | (tʼ) | ||||||||||||
Affricate | voiceless | p͡s | t̪͡s̪ | t͡ʃ | |||||||||
voiced | b͡z | d̪͡z̪ | d̪͡z̪ʷ | d͡ʒ | b͡ɡ | ||||||||
prenasal | ⁿd͡ʒ | ||||||||||||
aspirated | t̪͡s̪ʰ | t̪͡s̪ʰʷ | p͡kʰ | ||||||||||
breathy | t̪͡s̪ʱ | t͡ʃʱ | |||||||||||
ejective | t͡ʃʼ | ||||||||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sʷ | ʃ | ʃʷ | (x) | (xʷ) | |||||
voiced | v | z | zʷ | ʒ | ɦ | ||||||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||||||||
Trill | r | ||||||||||||
Approximant | lateral | l | |||||||||||
central | β̞ | j | w | ||||||||||
breathy | wʱ |
Kalanga has a typical five-vowel system:
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Mid | e | o | |
Open | a |
Languages of Botswana | |
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Indo-European | |
Bantu | |
Khoisan | |
Immigrant languages |
Languages of Zimbabwe | |
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Official languages | |
Unofficial languages | |
Immigrant languages |
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Note: The Guthrie classification is geographic and its groupings do not imply a relationship between the languages within them. |