Tumbuka Language

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Tumbuka language is a Bantu language which is spoken in parts of Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania. The language of the Tumbuka people is called chiTumbuka - the 'chi' in front of Tumbuka meaning 'the language of', similar to 'ki' in kiSwahili or 'se' in seTswana. The World Almanac (1998) estimates approximately 2,000,000 Tumbuka speakers exist in the aforementioned three countries. There are substantial differences between the form of Tumbuka spoken in urban areas (which borrows some words from Chichewa/Nyanja) and the "village" or "deep" Tumbuka spoken in villages. The Rumphi variant is often regarded as the most "linguistically pure", and is sometimes called "real Tumbuka".