Kwanyama dialect

Kwanyama
Oshikwanyama
Native to	Namibia and Angola
Region	Ovamboland
Native speakers	250,000 in Namibia (2006); 420,000 in Angola (1993)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Kavango–Southwest Southwest Bantu Ovambo Kwanyama
Language codes
ISO 639-1	kj
ISO 639-2	kua
ISO 639-3	kua
Glottolog	kuan1247[2]
Guthrie code	R.21[3]
Linguasphere	05-PEA-aa

Kwanyama or Oshikwanyama is a national language of Angola and Namibia. It is a standardized dialect of the Oshiwambo language, and is mutually intelligible with Oshindonga, the other Oshiwambo dialect with a standard written form.

The entire Christian Bible has been translated into Kwanyama and was first published in 1974 under the name Ombibeli by the South African Bible Society.^[4]

References

• Crane, Thera; Lindgren-Streicher, Karl; Wingo, Andy (2004). Hai ti! A Beginner's Guide to Oshikwanyama (PDF).
• Zimmerman, W.; Hasheela, P. (1998). Oshikwanyama Grammar. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan.

1. Kwanyama at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Kuanyama". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
4. Ombibeli, 1974, front page

External links

• Language map of Namibia
• Grammar and vocabulary (Spanish)
• PanAfrican L10n page on Kwanyama
• Omalinjongameno Ōngeleka. (Services of the Church in Kwanyama Authorised for Use in the Diocese of Damaraland, 1957) digitized by Richard Mammana 2015