Talk:Tumbuka language

Untitled

Perhaps some or all of the vocabulary guide should be in a Wikitravel phrasebook instead of here? - Trezatium 22:24, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Some sample sentences are fine, but a vocabulary guide is not really encyclopedic. It's a tonal language by the way, and tone isn't even marked here. — mark ✎ 07:34, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm new to Wikipedia and just thought I'd add this because I've not been able to find any basic Tumbuka vocab guide elsewhere on the net. Wikitravel has phrasebooks for other languages but not Tumbuka as yet. Perhaps someone would like to create one (and revert this article back to the original stub)? As for the tonal nature of the language, I understand there are many versions of written Tumbuka, but don't know which is recommended as standard. The spellings used here are those taught to me in the Eastern Province of Zambia. As it happens I'm leaving for the area again later today, so unfortunately won't be able to work on this myself until next month. But if you're interested in making a proper encyclopedic article then one of the external links has some good historical information. - Trezatium 13:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Since my departure's been delayed for a few days, I've made the changes myself. The vocabulary guide is now in Wikitravel, and this article is now a stub once more. - Trezatium 13:37, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Some text transferred here from Wikitravel

I copied over some descriptive material from the Wikitravel page for this language. It's relevant but sounds anecdotal, so should probably have some citation and maybe a rewrite. Not clear to me from the history if this was transferred over to Wikitravel with the phrases by Trezatium.

Some of the phonetic stuff could come back - ultimately, so long as there is "no standard"- a comparative orthography table would be nice here too (as well on the PanAfrican L10n wiki for localization work). Actually this also raises the question of what orthography they are using over on the Tumbuka edition http://tum.wikipedia.org/ ? --A12n 00:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the paragraph about "substantial differences" based on what I'd heard from Malawians (anecdotal), as well as various academic articles I found on the web (which appear to be reliable). One of these is the fourth external link (History of the Tumbuka language in Malawi), which contains a lot of interesting info that could help to extend the article. Trezatium 21:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted that link since it leads to the Kamwendo article for which there is now a direct link. Kanjuzi (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Spelling

It's true that the spelling doesn't seem to have been standardised to an agreed standard as yet. The Tumbuka Wikipedia and the Fuko newspaper write ba and cha but the online Citumbuka Dictionary of the Centre for Language Studies writes ŵa and ca. Kanjuzi (talk) 21:11, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Linguistic Descriptions

I deleted the sentence that information about Tumbuka can be found in Turner's dictionary. I have consulted the dictionary and it contains virtually no information about the language apart from the meanings of selected words. Kiso's thesis on the other hand does contain some information, summarising information given in Vail and other sources. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:50, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Where Spoken

There doesn't seem to be any evidence that Tumbuka is spoken to any extent in Tanzania. It does not seem to be listed as one of the 114 Tanzanian languages in this Ethnologue map, for example: http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/show_map.asp?name=TZ&seq=10 (unless hidden under a different name). So I have deleted 'Tanzania'. The Michigan State University information page http://africa.isp.msu.edu/afrlang/Tumbuka_root.html mentions only Malawi and the Lundazi district of Zambia. I have therefore deleted Tanzania along with the rather irrelevant information about the prefix chi-/si-/ki-. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:23, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Senga Dialect

I have deleted a reference to the Senga dialect, which according to the earlier version is not Tumbuka at all but a dialect of Sabi. The Wikipedia article on Senga, however, does not give any support for this view, other than a reference to "Christine Ahmed 1995" (no title at all is given) and a link to a request for a new language code for the Senga language of Zambia. 'Chisenga' is given by the Northern Malawi Language Survey (2006) p.30 as a district in the north of Malawi where Tumbuka is spoken; Senga is also listed as a dialect of Tumbuka by Maho (2009) "2nd New Updated Guthrie List" p.80. It is possible therefore that there has been confusion between two dialects of the same name. At any rate in view of the lack of proper documentation and possibility that there has been confusion, it seems best to omit the reference to the Senga dialect. Kanjuzi (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

IPA transcription of ŵ

ŵ (traditionally spelled "b") is well described by Atkins (1950) as a "closely lip-rounded [w] with the tongue in the close-i position". But its exact IPA transcription and its position on the table of consonants is unclear. Does anyone have any idea? Kanjuzi (talk) 14:39, 8 March 2019 (UTC) – I consulted the editor of the Citumbuka dictionary, who thought it a labial rather than a labio-dental; so pending a more detailed study by a phonetician, I have moved it to the plain labial row of the table. Kanjuzi (talk) 16:32, 21 April 2019 (UTC)