Yao language


Yao is a Bantu language in Africa with approximately two million speakers in Malawi, and half a million each in Tanzania and Mozambique. There are also some speakers in Zambia. In Malawi, the main dialect is Mangochi, mostly spoken around Lake Malawi. In Mozambique, the main dialects are Makale and Massaninga. The language has also gone by several other names in English, including chiYao or ciYao, Achawa, Adsawa, Adsoa, Ajawa, Ayawa, Ayo, Ayao, Djao, Haiao, Hiao, Hyao, Jao, Veiao, and waJao.
In Malawi, most Yao speakers live in the Southern Region near the southeast tip of Lake Malawi and bordering Mozambique to the east. In Mozambique most speakers live in Niassa Province from the eastern shore of Lake Malawi to the Lugenda River up to where it meets the Rovuma River. In Tanzania most speakers live in the south central, Mtwara Region, Masasi district and in the Ruvuma Region, Tunduru district, east of Lake Malawi along the Mozambican border.
In common with very many vernacular languages in Africa, it has historically enjoyed little official recognition, and literary work in the region where Yao is spoken has taken place in such languages as Arabic, English, German and Portuguese.

Phonetics and orthography

As in English, unvoiced plosives are breathed and voiced plosives are not. There are conventionally only five 'pure' vowels, viz. a, e, i, o, u, though there is some variation in vowel length. Yao is minimally tonal language, as is common in Bantu languages.
In each of the main three countries where Yao is spoken, the orthography differs widely, and there is a low literacy rate. In Tanzania, the orthography is based on that of Swahili, whereas in Malawi it is based on that of Chewa. The Malawian form uses the following characters:

Letter:ABChDEGIJ/DyKLLyMNNg'NyOPSTUWŴY
:~~


Macrons can be used to prevent ambiguity that would otherwise arise due to the lack of representation of vowel length.

Grammar

Yao is an SVO language. Like all Bantu languages, Yao is agglutinative, with a highly regular paradigm of verbal inflection, and its nouns placed in a variety of classes indicated by prefixes, these partially corresponding to actual categories of objects or people. To each class is associated a characteristic, used in the formation of pronouns and concord links, prefixes used before verbs governed by, and adjectives describing, a noun of the given class.

Noun classes

ClassPrefixClass characteristicUsed for
1m-, mu-, mw-jupersons singular
2ŵa-, a-, acha-, achi-ŵapersons plural
3m-, mu-, mw-uliving things singular
4mi-jiliving things plural
5li-, ly-limiscellaneous singular
6ma-gaplurals of class 5
7chi-, ch'-chimiscellaneous singular
8i-, y-iplurals of class 7
9n-, ny-, mb-, jimiscellaneous singular
10n-, ny-, mb-, siplurals of class 9
11lu-lulike 9, also singulars of class 10
12ka-kadiminutives singular
13tu-tuplurals of class 13
14u-ucollective and abstract, no plural; also some singulars of class 6
15ku, kw-kuinfinitives
16palocality
17kulocality
18mulocality

The corresponding concord links are identical to the nominal prefixes except in the cases of classes 1 and 2, which have concord links 'mb-' and 'a-' respectively. The convention of including classes 16, 17 and 18 deviates from the traditional Bantu system, their prefixes being more properly prepositional or case determiners.

Verbal forms

The personal forms are given below, with informal forms given in brackets.
Personal form prefixEnglish equivalent
n-, ni-I
a-he, she, it, you
tu-we
m-, mu-, mw-you
ŵa-, a-they

There are affirmative and negative forms of the verb, each with approximately the following divisions:

Indicative mood

As in many Bantu languages, this is characterised by an ending 'a'. Present, immediate future, present perfect, past and past perfect tenses are distinguished, the last being irregular in formation.

Subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood is similar in form to the indicative, but as in many Bantu languages, the final 'a' is changed to 'e'. It can be used as a polite imperative, and is usually associated with subordinate clauses.

Imperative

To form the 'ordinary' imperative, the simple stem may be used, or 'n' may be prefixed to the indicative, or the continuative suffixes '-ga' or '-je' may be added.

Pronouns

The personal pronouns relate only to classes 1 and 2. Other pronouns are formed from the class links. These pronouns, as a common Bantu feature, are absolute, in that they stand alone from the rest of the sentence: for nominative accusative and prepositional forms, affixes must be used. The third person pronouns depend on noun class, as explained above.
Absolute pronounEnglish equivalent
uneI, me
thou, thee
uwewe, us
umweyou

These forms may be combined according to certain normal Bantu laws of vowel elision with prefixes such as 'na'.
There are also several demonstratives, most of which form triples - that is, triple deixis is used.