- Also spoken in
- Malawi
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Downing calls Chitumbuka a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and one of the three major languages of Malawi, with Chichewa and Yao.
The Constitution of Malawi gives every person the right to use the language of his or her choice, and says that Parliament's proceedings are conducted in English and in such other languages as the National Assembly may prescribe.
Sources
- Downing, Laura J. (2006). "The Prosody and Syntax of Focus in Chitumbuka." ZAS Papers in Linguistics 43: 55–79.
- Constitution of Malawi (2017 text), Constitute Project — Section 26 (Culture and language) and section 56 (Official or national languages)
Script & pronunciation
Chitumbuka is written with Latin letters. The Chitumbuka New World Translation of the Bible uses the letter ŵ, as in ŵasambiri ŵake (John 4:2), and this app's Tumbuka cards also write ŵ, as in the card for "Two people", Ŵanthu ŵaŵiri.
The app's Tumbuka cards have no romanization line: the text is shown only in the Tumbuka spelling. According to the app's own card for "Thank you very much", the word chomene is spelled with ch here and some writers use c instead (comene).
The cards' text is written without tone marks.
Sources
Grammar essentials
Downing describes the basic word order of Chitumbuka as SVO (subject, verb, object), flexible, with information structure as one factor favoring other orders. In her examples the verb carries prefixes: ti-ku-líima means "we farm", ti-ka-líima "we farmed" and wa-zamu-líima "s/he will farm". Nouns have singular and plural prefixes, as in ci-páaso "fruit", plural vi-páaso. Downing writes ci-, where this app's cards use ch (see chomene above).
Downing notes that yes-no questions, and sometimes wh-questions, begin with the question morpheme kási. The app's card for "Do you speak English?" begins this way: Kasi mukuyowoya Chingelezi?
Downing's transcription writes a negative word yáaye "not" after the verb, as in ti-ku-líma yáaye "we do not farm". Separately, the app's card for "I don't know" writes a sentence-final yayi: Nkhumanya yayi.
Sources
Politeness & etiquette
Downing's examples include separate forms for "you" to one person and to several: [β]a-ka-ku-zengéera "they built for you sg." and [β]a-ka-mu-zengeráa-ni "they built for you pl.", with mu- and the ending -ni on the plural form. The app's cards describe the plural forms as polite. The card for "You (polite)", Imwe, says it is for elders, strangers or more than one person, and its note says "iwe" is the singular familiar form. The card for "How are you?", Muli uli?, glosses mu-li as "you (polite) are". The card for "Please help me", Chonde, novwirani, glosses -ni as the polite or plural imperative.
The card for "Thank you", Yewo, says yewo is a multi-purpose interjection that can also mean "excuse me", and the card for "I thank you very much", Nawonga chomene, calls it a more formal thanks than Yewo.