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Kalanga
TjiKalanga/Ikalanga
Native to	Zimbabwe, Botswana
Region	SouthWest parts of Zimbabwe Central, North Central and NorthEast Botswana
Ethnicity	Kalanga people
Native speakers	700,000 in Zimbabwe, 850,000 in Botswana (2012-2015)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantu Shona group (S.10) Kalanga
Official status
Official language in	Zimbabwe (both Kalanga and Nambya) Botswana-recognized language nationally.
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: kck – Kalanga nmq – Nambya
Glottolog	kala1405
Guthrie code	S.16
Linguasphere	99-AUT-ai

Kalanga, or TjiKalanga (in Zimbabwe), is a Bantu language spoken by the Kalanga people in Botswana and Zimbabwe. It has an extensive phoneme inventory, which includes palatalised, velarised, aspirated and breathy-voiced consonants, as well as whistled sibilants.

Kalanga is recognised as an official language by the Zimbabwean Constitution of 2013 and is taught in schools in areas where its speakers predominate. The iKalanga language is closely related to the Nambya, TshiVenda, and KheLobedu languages of Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Classification and varieties

Linguists place Kalanga (S.16 in Guthrie's classification) and Nambya (in the Hwange region of Zimbabwe) as the western branch of the Shona group (or Shonic, or Shona-Nyai) group of languages, collectively coded as S.10.

Kalanga has a dialectal variation between its Botswana and Zimbabwean varieties and they use slightly different orthographies. Historically, Wentzel mentioned Kalanga proper in the east and Lilima (Tjililima, Humbe) on the west, as well as varieties that are now rare or extinct: Nyai (Rozvi), Lemba (Remba), Lembethu (Rembethu), Twamamba (Xwamamba), Pfumbi, Jaunda (Jawunda, Jahunda), and †Romwe, †Peri, †Talahundra (Talaunda).

Phonology

Consonants

• Phonemes /tʰʷ, p͡s, b͡z, t͡ʃʼ/ occur only as marginal phonemes.
• Sounds /tʼ, tʷ, x, xʷ/ are sounds that are borrowed from Tswana.

Vowels

Kalanga has a typical five-vowel system:

References

1. "Kalanga". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
2. ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. ^ Mathangwane, Joyce T. (1999). Ikalanga phonetics and phonology: a synchronic and diachronic study. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
4. Wentzel, Petrus Johannes (1981). The Relationship between Venda and Western Shona. Ph.D. Thesis. Univ. of South Africa.

Further reading

• Chebanne, A. M. & Rodewald, M. K & Pahlen, K. W. (1995) Ngatikwaleni iKalanga: A Manual for Writing Kalanga as Spoken in Botswana. Gaborone: Botswana Society.
• Chebanne, Andy & Schmidt, Daniel (2010). "Kalanga: Summary Grammar". Cape Town, South Africa: CASAS Monograph 75.
• Dube, Limukani T. 2021. "Zimbabwe’s Kalanga Orthography: The Strengths and Shortcomings of the 2008 Writing System." Arusha Working Papers in African Linguistics, 3(1): 42-51.
• Letsholo, R. (2013). "Object Markers in Ikalanga". Linguistic Discovery. Dartmouth College.
• Mathangwane, Joyce T. (1999) Ikalanga Phonetics and Phonology: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

External links

• Language section of the Kalanga Language and Cultural Development Association website
• http://talkingdictionary.swarthmore.edu/kalanga/

• Kalanga
• Shona languages
• Languages of Botswana
• Languages of Zimbabwe