Tumbuka language

Chitumbuka is a Bantu language which is spoken in Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania. It is also known as Tumbuka or Citumbuka — the chi- prefix in front of Tumbuka means "in the manner of" and is understood in this case to mean "the language of the Tumbuka people". Chitumbuka belongs to the same language group (Guthrie Zone N) as other Bantu languages. In Northern Malawi, it is spoken in the districts of Rumphi, Mzuzu, Mzimba, Chitipa, Nkhata-Bay, Monkey Bay and Karonga, as well as in Central Malawi in the districts of Kasungu and Nkhotakota. In Eastern Zambia, Chitumbuka is spoken in the districts of Lumezi, Chasefu, Lundazi and Chama (Senga dialect). In Southern Tanzania, it is spoken in Mbeya and Njombe districts that share boundary with Northern Malawi. Senga (also called Tumbuka-Senga) is a dialect of Tumbuka spoken in Zambia's Chama district and surrounding areas. The World Almanac in 1998 estimated that there were approximately two million Tumbuka speakers, though other sources estimated a much smaller number while others estimated a higher number. The majority of Tumbuka speakers live in Malawi and Zambia, with a smaller number in South Tanzania. In 1947, Chitumbuka was made an official language of Malawi for 21 years along with Chewa and English. It was in 1968 when Hastings Kamuzu Banda removed the language as a result of his one-nation, one-language policy. The Chitumbuka language suffered a lot during the rule of President Banda. It was removed from the school curriculum, the national radio, and the print media. With the advent of multi-party democracy in 1994, Chitumbuka programmes were started again on the radio. There are substantial differences between the form of Chitumbuka spoken in urban areas of Malawi (which borrows some words from Swahili and English) and the "village" or "deep" Chitumbuka spoken in villages. The Rumphi variant is often regarded as the most "linguistically pure" and is sometimes called "real Chitumbuka". The Mzimba dialect has been strongly influenced by Zulu (chiNgoni), even so far as to have clicks in words like chitha [ʇʰitʰa] "urinate", which do not occur in other dialects.