1992
325 pp.
glossary
Text language: English
Kinyamwezi is a Bantu language (according to Guthrie F.22) of Western Tanzania and the mother tongue of at least one million people. There does not seem to be any strict linguistic border which would separate it from its northern neighbour Kisukuma. Speakers are aware of this dialect continuum, but recognize that Nyamwezi and Sukuma are two distinct ethnic identities, each with its own language. The dialect described here is the variety of Kinyamwezi spoken in the area of Ndala (Nzega District), and the mother tongue of one of the authors.
The book deals with the phonology, tonology and morphology. It consists of 5 parts: Part 1 introduces in detail the consonant and the vowel inventory and also the tonal system. Parts 2 and 3 discuss inflectional and derivational morphology. Part 4 presents a collection of texts with a close interlinear translation, and part 5 consists of a vocabulary Kinyamwezi-English/ English-Kinyamwezi (see complete table of contents at the bottom).
Under these links you will find further manuscripts by the author and an analysis of the cultural vocabulary of the Great Lakes Bantu languages, as well as a couple of descriptions of Bantu languages of this region (Gusii, Kiha, Kinyarwanda, Kuria, Luganda, Lusaamia, Kinyamwezi, Runyoro, Kuschitisch: Iraqw):
