Luvale (also spelt Chiluvale, Lovale, Lubale, Luena, Lwena) 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 ...

spoken by the

Lovale people The Luvale people, also spelled Lovale, Balovale, Lubale, as well as Lwena or Luena in Angola, are a Bantu ethnic group found in northwestern Zambia and southeastern Angola. They are closely related to the Lunda and Ndembu to the northeast, but the ...

Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordinat ...

and

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

. It is recognized as a regional language for educational and administrative purposes in Zambia, where about 168,000 people speak it as of 2006. Luvale uses a modified form of the

latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

in its written form. Luvale is closely related to

Chokwe Chokwe may refer to: *Chokwe people, a Central African ethnic group ** Chokwe language, a Bantu language * Chokwe or Tshokwe, Botswana, a village * Chokwe, Malawi * Chókwè District, Mozambique **Chokwe, Mozambique Chokwé, and earlier known a ...

Vocabulary

It contains many

loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

from Portuguese from colonial contact during 20th century, such as:

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Speakers

* Bernard K. Mbenga *

Samba Yonga Samba Yonga is a Zambian journalist and media consultant. She has worked a long time as editor for ''Big Issue Zambia'' and has written for several other publications. Yonga is the founder of Ku-Atenga Media, a media consultancy firm and was na ...

References

External links

* *Moses C.B. Mulongesa,
Vishimo vya Kuuko
'' Lubuto Library Special Collections, accessed May 3, 2014.
Luvale language books
Lubuto Library Special Collections
OLAC resources in and about the Luvale language
Chokwe-Luchazi languages Languages of Angola Languages of Zambia Library of Congress Africa Collection related {{Bantu-lang-stub