Lambya language

Lambya
Ichilambya
Native to	Tanzania, Malawi
Ethnicity	Lambya
Native speakers	unknown (40,000 in Tanzania cited 1987)[1] 60,000 in Malawi (2012) 2,000 in Zambia (1958)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Bantu Rukwa Mbozi Mbeya South Lambya
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lai
Glottolog	lamb1272[2]
Guthrie code	M.201,202[3]

Lambya (Rambia) is a Bantu language of Tanzania and Malawi. In Northern Malawi it is spoken particularly in the Chitipa District.^[4]

Sukwa, once thought to be a dialect of Nyakyusa, is a dialect of Lambya.^[5] The University of Malawi Language Mapping Survey for Northern Malawi (2006), agreeing with this, found that Cilambya, Cindali, and Cisukwa form a single dialect group, although there are differences between them. For example:

• Person = umunthu, umundu, umundu
• Grasshopper = imphanzi, imbashi, imbasi
• Scorpion = kalizga, kalisha, kalisya
• Maize = ivilombe, ifilombe, ifilombe

The Language Mapping Survey gives further vocabulary and also a short text (the Tortoise and the Hare) in all three dialects.^[4]

References

1. Lambya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Lambya". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
4. University of Malawi Language Mapping Survey for Northern Malawi (2006) (see External links).
5. Nurse, Derek (1988) "The Diachronic Background to the Language Communities of South Western Tanzania" in Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika vol 9, 15-115.

External links

• Language Mapping Survey for Northern Malawi. University of Malawi Centre for Language Studies, 2006.
• Language Map of Northern Malawi
• Paper by Martin Walsh and Imani Swilla on South-West Tanzanian languages (2002)