Nyungwe (''Cinyungwe'' or Nhungue) 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 Mozambique. It is used as a

trade language A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

throughout

Tete Province Tete is a Provinces of Mozambique, province of Mozambique. It has an area of 98,417 km² and a population of 2,648,941 (2017 census). Tete is the capital of the province. The Cahora Bassa Dam is situated in this province. Districts On ...

Geographic distribution

Nyungwe is spoken by more than 439,000 people in

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

along the

Zambezi River The Zambezi River (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than hal ...

, principally in

Official status

While Portuguese is the only official language of Mozambique, Nyungwe is one of the recognized national languages.

Phonology

The phonological inventory is:

Vowels

Consonants

History

Many vocabulary words collected by David Livingstone in Tete in the 1850s, and Courtois in the 1890s are similar to the words in common use by Nyungwe-speaking people today.

Examples

References

External links

O Centro de Estudos de Línguas Moçambicanas (NELIMO)
The Mozambican authority on languages.
Publications in Nyungwe at lidemo.net

A blog about the Nyungwe Bible translation
{{Narrow Bantu languages, N-S Nyasa languages Languages of Mozambique