Kalanga, or ''TjiKalanga'' (in Zimbabwe), is a
Bantu language spoken by the
Kalanga people
The Kalanga or Bakalanga are a southern Bantu ethnic group mainly inhabiting Matebeleland in Zimbabwe, northeastern Botswana and Limpopo Province in South Africa. They are historically related to the Nambya, Karanga, Bapedi and Venda.
Curren ...
in
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...
and
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
. It has an extensive phoneme inventory, which includes
palatalised,
velarised,
aspirated and
breathy-voiced consonants,
as well as
whistled sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
s.
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
Venda or Tshivenda is a Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. It is mainly spoken by the Venda people in the northern part of South Africa's Limpopo province, as well as by some Lemba people in South Africa. The Venda lan ...
, and
KheLobedu languages of Zimbabwe and
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
.
Classification and varieties
Linguists place Kalanga (S.16 in
Guthrie's classification
The 250 or so "Narrow Bantu languages" are conventionally divided up into geographic zones first proposed by Malcolm Guthrie (1967–1971). These were assigned letters A–S and divided into decades (groups A10, A20, etc.); individual languages ...
) and
Nambya (in the
Hwange
Hwange (formerly Wankie) is a town in Zimbabwe, located in Hwange District, in Matabeleland North Province, in northwestern Zimbabwe, close to the international borders with Botswana and Zambia. It lies approximately , by road, southeast of ...
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
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...
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).
Phonology
Consonants
* Phonemes occur only as marginal phonemes.
* Sounds are sounds that are borrowed from Tswana.
Vowels
Kalanga has a typical five-vowel system:
References
Further reading
* Chebanne, A. M. & Rodewald, M. K & Pahlen, K. W. (1995) ''Ngatikwaleni iKalanga: A Manual for Writing Kalanga as Spoken in Botswana.'' Gaborone: Botswana Society.
* Chebanne, Andy & Schmidt, Daniel (2010). "Kalanga: Summary Grammar". Cape Town, South Africa: CASAS Monograph 75.
* Dube, Limukani T. 2021. "Zimbabwe’s Kalanga Orthography: The Strengths and Shortcomings of the 2008 Writing System." ''Arusha Working Papers in African Linguistics'', 3(1): 42-51.
* Letsholo, R. (2013)
"Object Markers in Ikalanga" ''Linguistic Discovery''. Dartmouth College.
* Mathangwane, Joyce T. (1999) ''Ikalanga Phonetics and Phonology: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study.'' Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
External links
Language section of the Kalanga Language and Cultural Development Association website*http://talkingdictionary.swarthmore.edu/kalanga/
{{Authority control
Shona languages
Languages of Botswana
Languages of Zimbabwe