Chewa language


Chewa is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi and Zambia, where it is an official language, and Mozambique and Zimbabwe where it is a recognised minority language. The noun class prefix chi- is used for languages, so the language is usually called Chichewa and Chinyanja. In Malawi, the name was officially changed from Chinyanja to Chichewa in 1968 at the insistence of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, and this is still the name most commonly used in Malawi today. In Zambia, the language is generally known as Nyanja or Cinyanja/Chinyanja ' of the lake'.
Chewa belongs to the same language group as Tumbuka, Sena and Nsenga.

Distribution

Chewa is the most widely known language of Malawi, spoken mostly in the Central and Southern Regions of that country. "It is also one of the seven official African languages of Zambia, where it is spoken mostly in the Eastern Province and Lusaka Province. It is also spoken in Mozambique, especially in the provinces of Tete and Niassa, as well as in Zimbabwe where, according to some estimates, it ranks as the third-most widely used local language, after Shona and Northern Ndebele." It was one of the 55 languages featured on the Voyager spacecraft.

History

The Chewa were a branch of the Maravi people who lived in the Eastern Province of Zambia and in northern Mozambique as far south as the River Zambezi from the 16th century or earlier.
The name "Chewa" itself is first recorded by António Gamitto, who at the age of 26 in 1831 was appointed as second-in-command of an expedition from Tete to the court of King Kazembe in what is now Zambia. His route took him through the country of King Undi west of the Dzalanyama mountains, across a corner of present-day Malawi and on into Zambia. Later he wrote an account including some ethnographic and linguistic notes and vocabularies. According to Gamitto, the Malawi or Maravi people were those ruled by King Undi south of the Chambwe stream, while the Chewa lived north of the Chambwe.
Apart from a few words recorded by Gamitto, the first extensive record of the Chewa language was made by Johannes Rebmann in his Dictionary of the Kiniassa Language, published in 1877 but written in 1853-4. Rebmann was a missionary living near Mombasa in Kenya, and he obtained his information from a Malawian slave, known by the Swahili name Salimini, who had been captured in Malawi some ten years earlier. Salimini, who came from a place called Mphande apparently in the Lilongwe region, also noted some differences between his own dialect and the Maravi dialect spoken further south; for example, the Maravi gave the name mombo to the tree which he himself called kamphoni.
The first grammar, A Grammar of the Chinyanja language as spoken at Lake Nyasa with Chinyanja–English and English–Chinyanja vocabulary, was written by Alexander Riddel in 1880. Further early grammars and vocabularies include A grammar of Chinyanja, a language spoken in British Central Africa, on and near the shores of Lake Nyasa by George Henry and M.E. Woodward's A vocabulary of English–Chinyanja and Chinyanja–English: as spoken at Likoma, Lake Nyasa. The whole Bible was translated into the Likoma Island dialect of Nyanja by William Percival Johnson and published as Chikalakala choyera: ndicho Malangano ya Kale ndi Malangano ya Chapano in 1912. Another Bible translation, known as the Buku Lopatulika ndilo Mau a Mulungu, was made in a more standard Central Region dialect about 1900-1922 by missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Mission and Church of Scotland with the help of some Malawians. This has recently been reissued in a revised and slightly modernised version.
Another early grammar, concentrating on the Kasungu dialect of the language, was Mark Hanna Watkins' A Grammar of Chichewa. This book, the first grammar of an African language to be written by an American, was a work of cooperation between a young black PhD student and young student from Nyasaland studying in Chicago, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who in 1966 was to become the first President of the Republic of Malawi. This grammar was also the first to mark the tones of the words.
In recent years the language has changed considerably, and a dichotomy has grown between the traditional Chichewa of the villages and the language of city-dwellers.

Phonology

Vowels

Chewa has five vowel sounds: ; these are written a, e, i, o, u. Long or double vowels are sometimes found, e.g. áákúlu 'big', kufúula 'to shout'. When a word comes at the end of a phrase, its penultimate vowel tends to be lengthened, except for non-Chewa names and words, such as Muthárika or ófesi, in which the penultimate vowel always remains short. The added 'u' or 'i' in borrowed words such as láputopu 'laptop' or íntaneti 'internet' tends to be silent or barely pronounced.

Consonants

Chewa consonants can be plain, labialised, or palatalised :
In this scheme, the place of bya is taken by the palatalised affricate bza, and the place of gya is taken by ja, and sya is replaced by sha.
Another way of classifying the consonants is according to whether they are voiced, unvoiced, aspirated, nasal, or continuant:
Voiced and aspirated consonants, as well as and , can also be preceded by a homorganic nasal:
The possible consonant combinations can thus be arranged on a table as follows:
voicedunvoicedaspiratednasalised voicednasalised aspiratednasalsemivowel/ liquid
labialba
pa
pha
mba
mpha
ma

bwa
pwa
phwa
mbwa
mphwa
mwa
wa
bza
pya
psa
mbza
mpsa
mya
dentalda
ta
 tha
nda
ntha
na
la/ra
dwa
twa
thwa
ndwa
nthwa
lwa/rwa
dya
tya
thya
ndya
nthya
nya
velar/ palatalga
ka
kha
nga
nkha
ng'a
gwa
kwa
khwa
ngwa
nkhwa
ng'wa
ja
cha
tcha
nja
ntcha
ya
labio-dentalva
fa
mva
mfa
vwa
fwa
'
'
sibilantza
sa
nza
nsa
zwa
swa
nzwa
nswa
'
sha
affricatedza
tsa
'
'
tswa
glottal

The spelling used here is that introduced in 1973, which is the one generally in use in the Malawi at the present time, replacing the Chinyanja Orthography Rules of 1931.
Notes on the consonants'
Like most other Bantu languages, Chewa is a tonal language; that is to say, the pitch of the syllables plays an important role in it. Tone is used in various ways in the language. First of all, each word has its own tonal pattern, for example:
Usually there is only one high tone in a word, or none. However, in compound words there can be more than one high tone, for example:
A second important use of tone is in the verb. Each tense of the verb has its own characteristic tonal pattern. For example, the present habitual has high tones on the initial syllable and the penultimate, the other syllables being low:
The recent past continuous, on the other hand, has a tone on the third syllable:
Tones can also indicate whether a verb is being used in a main clause or in a dependent clause such as a relative clause:
A third use of tones in Chewa is to show phrasing and sentence intonation. For example, immediately before a pause in the middle of a sentence the speaker's voice tends to rise up; this rise is referred to as a boundary tone. Other intonational tones are sometimes heard, for example a rising or falling tone at the end of a yes-no question.

Grammar

Noun classes

Chewa nouns are divided for convenience into a number of classes, which are referred to by the Malawians themselves by names such as "Mu-A-", but by Bantu specialists by numbers such as "1/2", corresponding to the classes in other Bantu languages. Conventionally, they are grouped into pairs of singular and plural. However, irregular pairings are also possible, especially with loanwords; for example, bánki 'bank', which takes the concords of class 9 in the singular, has a plural mabánki.
When assigning nouns to a particular class, initially the prefix of the noun is used. Where there is no prefix, or where the prefix is ambiguous, the concords are used as a guide to the noun class. For example, katúndu 'possessions' is put in class 1, since it takes the class 1 demonstrative uyu 'this'.
Some nouns belong to one class only, e.g. tomáto 'tomato', mowa 'beer', malayá 'shirt', udzudzú 'mosquito', and do not change between singular and plural. Despite this, such words can still be counted if appropriate: tomáto muwíri 'two tomatoes', mowa uwíri 'two beers', malayá amódzi 'one shirt', udzudzú umódzi 'one mosquito'.
Class 11 is not found in Chewa. Words like lumo 'razor' and lusó 'skill' are considered to belong to class 5/6 and take the concords of that class.
: galú pl. agalú 'dog'. Class 1a refers to nouns which have no m- prefix.
The plural a- is used only for humans and animals. It can also be used for respect, e.g. aphunzitsi áthu 'our teacher'
: kíyi pl. makíyi 'key'; gúle pl. magúle 'dance'
: tomáto 'tomato'; katúndu 'luggage, furniture'; feteréza 'fertilizer'
: mowa 'beer'; móto 'fire'; bowa 'mushroom'
Often the first consonant is softened or omitted in the plural in this class.
: madzí 'water', mankhwála 'medicine', maló 'place'
: chímanga 'maize'; chikóndi 'love'
: ndevu 'beard'; ndíwo 'relish'; nzerú 'intelligence'
: bánki pl. mabánki 'bank'
: kasamalidwe 'method of taking care'; kavinidwe 'way of dancing'
: tuló 'sleep'
: utá pl. mautá 'bow'
Infinitive class:
Locative classes:
Pronouns, adjectives, and verbs have to show agreement with nouns in Chichewa. This is done by means of prefixes, for example:
Class 2 is often used for respect when referring to elders. According to Corbett and Mtenje, a word like bambo 'father', even though it is singular, will take plural concords ; they note that to use the singular object-marker -mu- would be 'grossly impolite'.
The various prefixes are shown on the table below:
nounEnglishthisthatpronsubjobjectnumremofof+vbotheradj
1mwanáchilduyuuyoyé-a-mu/m-m/-ujawáwó-wínawám-
2anáchildrenawaawoó-a--a/wa-a-ajaáó-énaáa-
3mutúheaduwuuwowó-u--u-u-ujawáwó-wínawau-
4mitúheadsiyiiyoyó-i--i/yi-i-ijayáyó-ínayái-
5dísoeyeiliiloló-li--li-li-lijaláló-línaláli-
6masóeyesawaawoó-a--wa-a-ajaáó-énaáa-
7chakáyearichiichochó-chi--chi-chi-chijacháchó-chínacháchi-
8zakáyearsiziizozó-zi--zi-zi-zijazázó-zínazázi-
9nyumbáhouseiyiiyoyó-i--i/yi-i-ijayáyó-ínayái-
10nyumbáhousesiziizozó-zi--zi-zi-zijazázó-zínazázi-
12kamwanábabyakaakokó-ka--ka-ka-kajakákó-kénakáka-
13tianábabiesitiitotó-ti--ti-ti-tijatátó-tínatáti-
14utábowuwuuwowó-u--u-u-ujawáwó-wínawáu-
15kugúlabuyingukuukokó-ku--ku-ku-kujakwákó-kwínakwáku-
16pansíunderneathapaapopó-pa--pa-pa-pajapápó-pénapápa-
17kutsogolóin frontukuukokó-ku--ku-ku-kujakwákó-kwínakwáku-
18mkatíinsideumuumomó-m/mu--mu-m/mu-mujamwámó-mwínamwám'-

Although there are 17 different noun classes, because some of them share concords there are in fact only 12 sets of prefixes.

Examples of the use of concords

In the examples below, the concords are illustrated mainly with nouns of classes 1 and 2.

Demonstratives 'this' and 'that'

The shortened forms are more common.

Pronominal , etc.

Prefixed by a supporting vowel, or by ná 'with' or ndi 'it is', these make the pronouns 'he/she' and 'they':
For classes other than classes 1 and 2, a demonstrative is used instead of a freestanding pronoun, for example in class 6 ichi or icho. But forms prefixed by ná- and ndi- such as nácho and ndichó are found.

, ,

The three pronominal adjectives yénse 'all', yékha 'alone', yémwe 'that same' have the same pronominal concords yé- and ó-, this time as prefixes:
In classes 2 and 6, ó- often becomes wó-.
The word áliyensé 'every' is compounded from the verb áli 'who is' and yénse 'all'. Both parts of the word have concords:
As with other Bantu languages, all Chewa verbs have a prefix which agrees with the subject of the verb. In modern Chewa, the class 2 prefix has become a-, identical with the prefix of class 1:
The perfect tense has different subject prefixes from the other tenses.

'who'

The relative pronoun améne 'who' and demonstrative améneyo use the same prefixes as a verb:
The use of an object infix is not obligatory in Chewa. If used, it comes immediately before the verb root, and agrees with the object:
The object infix of classes 16, 17, and 18 is usually replaced by a suffix: ndaonámo 'I have seen inside it'.
The same infix with verbs with the applicative suffix -ira represents the indirect object, e.g. ndamúlembera 'I have written to him'.

Numeral concords

Numeral concords are used with numbers -módzi 'one', -wíri 'two', -tátu 'three', -náyi 'four', -sanu 'five', and the words -ngáti? 'how many', -ngápo 'several':
m- becomes mu- before -wiri: tomáto muwíri 'two tomatoes'.
The number khúmi 'ten' has no concord.

Demonstratives and

The demonstrative pronouns uja 'that one you know' and uno 'this one we are in' take the concords u- and a- in classes 1 and 2. For semantic reasons, class 1 uno is rare:
The same concords w- and a-, combined with the vowel a, make the subject prefix of the perfect tense. In the plural the two prefixes a-a- combine into a single vowel:
The concords w- and a- are also found in the word á 'of':
The same concords are used in possessive adjectives -ánga 'my', -áko 'your', -áke 'his/her/its/their', -áthu 'our', -ánu 'your, -áwo 'their'/'his/her' :
-áwo 'their' is used only of people.
Wá 'of' can be combined with nouns or adverbs to make adjectives:
In the same way wá 'of' combines with the ku- of the infinitive to make verbal adjectives. Wá + ku- usually shortens to wó-, except where the verb root is monosyllabic:
The same w- and a- concords are found with the words -ína 'other' and -ení-éní 'real'. In combination with these words the plural concord a- is converted to e-:
Certain adjectives have a double prefix, combining the possessive concord and the number concord :
Early dictionaries, such as those of Rebmann, and of Scott and Hetherwick, show that formerly the number of concords was greater. The following changes have taken place:
In addition, classes 4 and 9, and classes 15 and 17 have identical concords, so the total number of concord sets is now twelve.

Verbs

Formation of tenses

in Chichewa are differentiated in two ways, by their tense-marker, and by their tonal pattern. Sometimes two tenses have the same tense-marker and differ in their tonal pattern alone. In the following examples, the tense-marker is underlined:
One tense has no tense-marker:
Tenses can be modified further by adding certain other infixes, called 'aspect-markers', after the tense-marker. These are -má- 'always, usually' -ká- 'go and', -dzá 'come and' or 'in future', and -ngo- 'only', 'just'. These infixes can also be used on their own, as tense-markers in their own right. For example:
Compound tenses, such as the following, are also found in Chichewa:
Chichewa verbs begin with a prefix agreeing grammatically with the subject. This prefix is referred to by some grammarians as the 'subject-marker'.
The subject-marker can be:
An example of a locative subject-marker is:
Both the 2nd and the 3rd person plural pronouns and subject-markers are used respectfully to refer to a single person:
Except in the perfect tense, the 3rd person subject marker when used of people is the same whether singular or plural. So in the present tense the 3rd person subject-marker is a-:
But in the perfect tense wa- contrasts with a- :
When the subject is a noun not in class 1, the appropriate class prefix is used even if referring to a person:
An object-marker can also optionally be added to the verb; if one is added it goes immediately before the verb-stem:
The object-marker can be:
Chewa has a large number of tenses, some of which differ in some respects from the tenses met with in European languages. The distinction between one tense and another is made partly by the use of infixes, such as -na- and -ku-, and partly by the intonation of the verb, since each tense has its own particular tonal pattern.

Near vs. remote

There are five time-frames. The distinction between near and remote tenses is not exact. The remote tenses are not used of events of today or last night, but the near tenses can sometimes be used of events of earlier or later than today.

Perfect vs. past

Another distinction is between perfect and past. The two perfect tenses imply that the event described still has some relevance now:
The two past simple tenses usually imply that the result of the action has been reversed in some way:
When used in narrating a series of events, however, these implications are somewhat relaxed: the Remote Perfect is used for narrating earlier events, and the Recent Past for narrating events of today.

Perfective vs. imperfective

Another important distinction in Chewa is between perfective and imperfective aspect. Imperfective tenses are used for situations, events which occur regularly, or events which are temporarily in progress:
In the present tense only, there is a further distinction between habitual and progressive:
One future tense not found in European languages is the -ká- future, which 'might presuppose an unspoken conditional clause':
The following tenses refer to potentiality as well as time:
There are also two subjunctive mood tenses, as follows:
Negative tenses, if they are main verbs, are made with the prefix sí-. They differ in intonation from the positive tenses. The negative of the -ná- tense has the ending -e instead of -a:
Tenses which mean 'will not' or 'have not yet' have a single tone on the penultimate syllable:
Infinitives, participial verbs, and the subjunctive make their negative with -sa-, which is added after the subject-prefix instead of before it. They similarly have a single tone on the penultimate syllable:
The tenses used in certain kinds of dependent clauses differ from those used in main clauses. Dependent verbs often have a tone on the first syllable. Sometimes this change of tone alone is sufficient to show that the verb is being used in a dependent clause. Compare for example:
Other commonly used dependent tenses are the following :
After the verb stem one or more extensions may be added. The extensions modify the meaning of the verb, for example:
Extensions which have an intensive or stative meaning tend to have a high tone, e.g. yang'anitsitsá 'look carefully', pitirirá 'carry on, keep going', guliká 'be saleable, get bought'; however, there are some exceptions such as oneka 'seem'.
Most extensions, apart from the reciprocal -ana 'one another', have two possible forms, e.g. -ira/-era, -itsa/-etsa, -ula/-ola. The forms with e and o are used if the verb stem is monosyllabic or has an e or o in it, e.g.
The forms with i and u are used with the verb stem has a, i, or u:

Story-writers and playwrights

The following have written published stories, novels, or plays in the Chewa language:
An urban variety of Nyanja, sometimes called Town Nyanja, is the lingua franca of the Zambian capital Lusaka and is widely spoken as a second language throughout Zambia. This is a distinctive Nyanja dialect with some features of Nsenga, although the language also incorporates large numbers of English-derived words, as well as showing influence from other Zambian languages such as Bemba. Town Nyanja has no official status, and the presence of large numbers of loanwords and colloquial expressions has given rise to the misconception that it is an unstructured mixture of languages or a form of slang.
The fact that the standard Nyanja used in schools differs dramatically from the variety actually spoken in Lusaka has been identified as a barrier to the acquisition of literacy among Zambian children.
The concords in Town Nyanja differ from those in Chichewa described above. For example, classes 5 and 6 both have the concord ya- instead of la- and a-; class 8 has va- instead of za-; and 13 has twa- instead of ta-. In addition, the subject and object marker for "I" is ni- rather than ndi-, and that for "they" is βa- rather than a-.

Sample phrases

EnglishChewa Town Nyanja
How are you?Muli bwanji?Muli bwanji?
I'm fineNdili bwinoNili bwino / Nili mushe
Thank youZikomoZikomo
YesIndeEe
NoIyayi/AyiIyayi
What's your name?Dzina lanu ndani?Zina yanu ndimwe bandani?
My name is...Dzina langa ndine...Zina yanga ndine...
How many children do you have?Muli ndi ana angati?Muli na bana bangati?
I have two childrenNdili ndi ana awiriNili na bana babili
I want...Ndikufuna...Nifuna...
FoodChakudyaVakudya
WaterMadziManzi
How much is it?Ndi zingati?Ni zingati?
See you tomorrowTionana mawaTizaonana mailo
I love youNdimakukondaNikukonda