Iramba, also known as Nilamba (there is no distinction between and ) is a

Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

of spoken by the Nilamba and Iambi people of the

Iramba District Iramba is one of the six districts of the Singida Region of central Tanzania. It is bordered to the Northwest by the Shinyanga Region, to the North by Simiyu Region, to the east by the Mkalama District, to the South by Ikungi District and to the W ...

in the

Singida Region Singida Region (''Mkoa wa Singida'' in Swahili) is one of the regions of Tanzania. The regional capital is the municipality of Singida. The region is bordered to the north by Shinyanga Region, Simiyu Region and Arusha Region, to the northeast by ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

. Forms of the name occur with and without the prefix ''ni-'' or ''i-'', as well as ''iki-'' (Swahili ''ki-'') as the

noun-class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...

prefix for 'language', and variation of ''r ~ l ~ ly'' in the root. This results in many superficial variants, including ''Nilamba, Niramba, Nilyamba, Nyilamba, Ikinilamba, Ikiniramba, Ilamba, Iramba, Kinilamba, Kiniramba''; there is also ''Nilambari''. The 50,000 Iambi speak a slightly divergent dialect, sometimes listed as a distinct language. On the other hand, the Isanzu language is sometimes included as a dialect.

References

External links

Nilamba basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
Languages of Tanzania Northeast Bantu languages {{Bantu-lang-stub