Chokwe language
Chokwe | |
---|---|
Ucôkwe (Wuchokwe) | |
Native to | Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia |
Ethnicity | Chokwe people |
Native speakers | (2.5 million cited 1990–2018)[1] |
Official status | |
Official language in | Angola (national language) |
Regulated by | Instituto de Línguas Nacionais |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | cjk |
Glottolog | chok1245 |
K.11 [2] |
Chokwe | |
---|---|
Person | Kacôkwe |
People | Tucôkwe |
Language | Ucôkwe (Wuchokwe) |
Chokwe (also known as Batshokwe, Ciokwe, Kioko, Kiokwe, Quioca, Quioco, Shioko, Tschiokloe or Tshokwe[3]) is a Bantu language spoken by the Chokwe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia. It is recognised as a national language of Angola, where half a million people were estimated to have spoken it in 1991; another half a million speakers lived in the Congo in 1990, and some 20,000 in Zambia in 2010.[1] It is used as a lingua franca in eastern Angola.
Writing system
[edit]This section needs expansion with: description (and sources) for said system. You can help by adding to it. (June 2022) |
Angola's Instituto de Línguas Nacionais (National Languages Institute) has established spelling rules for Chokwe with a view to facilitate and promote its use.[4]
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
Open | a ~ ɑ |
Vowels may also be heard as nasalized when preceding nasal consonants.
Consonants
[edit]Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stop | voiceless | p | t | (c) | k | ||
voiced | b | d | (ɟ) | g | |||
aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | ||||
prenasal vd. | ᵐb | ⁿd | (ᶮɟ) | ᵑɡ | |||
prenasal vl. | ᵐp | ||||||
Affricate | voiceless | p͡f | t͡f | t͡ʃ | |||
voiced | t͡v | d͡ʒ | |||||
prenasal | ⁿd͡v | ⁿd͡ʒ | |||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | ||
voiced | v | z | ʒ | ||||
prenasal | ⁿz | ⁿʒ | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
Approximant | lateral | l | ʎ | ||||
plain | j | w |
Affricate sounds /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ⁿd͡ʒ/ may also be pronounced as palatal stops [c, ɟ, ᶮɟ].
Tones
[edit]Chokwe has three tones as /v́/, /v̀/, and /v̂/.[5][6]
Examples
[edit]English | Chokwe |
---|---|
Good Morning
-Response |
Menekenu
-Mwane |
See you | Ndo shimbu yikehe |
Goodbye | Salenuho |
What is your name? | Jina lie yena iya? |
My name is ____ | Jina liami ___ |
References
[edit]- ^ a b Chokwe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ Nurse, Derek; Philippson, Gérard; Bostoen, Koen; Van de Velde, Mark (2019). The Bantu languages (Second ed.). London. ISBN 9781317628682.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Ethnologue report for Angola". 2012-09-23. Archived from the original on 2012-09-23. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
- ^ Ualhanga, Xavier Chipuleno (2017). Antroponímia na Língua Cokwe (Lunda-Norte) [Anthroponymy in the Cokwe Language (Lunda-Norte)] (Master's thesis) (in Portuguese). Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. hdl:10362/21952.
- ^ Martins, João Vicente (1990). Elementos de Gramática de Utchokwe [Utchokwe Grammar Elements] (in Portuguese). Lisboa: Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical. pp. 25–32.
- ^ Akindipe, Omotola. "Learn Chokwe (Greetings and Introduction)". Learn Chokwe. Archived from the original on 2021-05-09.
External links
[edit]- Learn Chokwe on the internet (Mofeko) Omotola Akindipe, Geofrey Kakaula & Alcino Joné