Ndonga, also called Oshindonga, is a
Bantu
Bantu may refer to:
*Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages
*Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language
* Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle
*Black Association for National ...
dialect spoken in
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
and parts of
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
. It is a standardized
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
of the
Ovambo language
The Ovambo () language is a dialect cluster spoken by the Ovambo people in southern Angola and northern Namibia, of which the written standards are Kwanyama and Ndonga.
The native name for the language is ''Oshiwambo'' (also written ''Oshi ...
, and is
mutually intelligible with
Kwanyama, the other Ovambo dialect with a standard written form. With 810,000 speakers, the language has the largest number of speakers in Namibia.
Martti Rautanen translated the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
into the Ndonga dialect. Beginning his work in 1885, he published the New Testament in 1903, but it took until 1920 to finish the Old Testament. His Bible translation became the basis of a standardized form of Ndonga.
Phonology
Vowels
Oshindonga uses a five-vowel system:
Consonants
Oshindonga contains the following consonant phonemes:
Prenasalized sounds are listed below:
*
Ì¥p
*
b
*
±v
*
̥θ*
ð
*
̥ʃ
*
Ì¥t
*
d
*
z
*
Ì¥ts
*
‹k
*
‹É¡
Oshindonga also contains many other consonant compounds, listed below:
*
Ì¥pÊ°*
Ì¥tÊ°*
Ì¥kÊ°*
Ì¥pÊ°w*
Ì¥tÊ°w*
Ì¥kÊ°w*
Ì¥dz*
Ì¥tsÊ°*
dÊ’*
w*
sʼ(voiceless, ejective, alveolar affricate)
*
sʲ(voiceless, palatalized, labio-alveolar affricate)
References
*
External links
Ndonga
Ovambo language
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