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Central Kilimanjaro language

Central Kilimanjaro, or Central Chaga, is a Bantu language of Tanzania spoken by the Chaga people.

Dialects

There are several dialects:

  • Moshi (Old Moshi, Mochi, Kimochi)
  • Uru
  • Mbokomu
  • Wuunjo (Wunjo, Vunjo, Kivunjo), including Kiruwa, Kilema, Mamba, Moramu (Marangu), Mwika

Moshi is the language of the Chaga cultural capital, Moshi, and the prestige dialect of the Chaga languages.

Phonology

Vowels

In orthography, long vowels are written double. However, while older works suggest vowel length contrast may have formerly been phonemic, more recent works suggest the distinction has been partially or completely neutralized, unlike in West Kilimanjaro.

Consonants

  • Consonants become palatalized to when occurring before the front vowels .
  • appears as a fricative when before the front vowels .
  • and are restricted to loans. is native and contrasts with the allophone of but is rare.
  • are dental, et al. are alveolar.
  • The consonants and become palatal (and merge with the palatals) when occurring before the front vowels .
  • appears as a fricative when before the front vowels .
  • The dental lateral is usually velarized as .
  • is also heard as postalveolar .

<sup>‡</sup> NC are not prenasalized consonants but rather consonant sequences; in initial position, the nasal is syllabic.

<sup>†</sup> , and may be pronounced as fricatives. being heard as an alveolar fricative trill , the being heard as a retroflex fricative , with an extent of frication on the palatalized lateral as .

Tones

Vunjo dialect has two underlying tones (high /H/ and low /L/) that surface as three level and five contour tones: [xH] (extra-high), [H], [L], falling [HL] and [xHL], rising [LH] and [LxH], and peaking [LHL], plus two downstepped tones [ꜝH] and [ꜝxH].

Bibliography

  • Dalgish, Gerard M. (1978) 'The syntax and semantics of the morpheme ni in kiVunjo (Chaga)', Kiswahili, 48, 1, 42&ndash;56.
  • Philippson, Gérard (1984) '"Gens des bananeraies" (Tanzanie): contribution linguistique à l'histoire culturelle des Chaga du Kilimanjaro' (Cahier no. 16.) Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations.

References