Sukuma/ Nyamwezi Language Page

1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN

Sukuma and Nyamwezi, spoken in western Tanzania, form a dialect continuum. Accordingly, they are placed in the Sukuma-Nyamwezi Group of Bantu (Guthrie F20).

2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS

Alexandre (1981) notes 1.6 million speaker. Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) break this down to 890,000 Sukuma and 365,000 Nyamwezi speakers, while Grimes (1996) cites figures of 5 million and 926,000, respectively.

3 DIALECT SURVEY

No detailed dialect survey work has been done for Sukuma-Nyamwezi.

4 USAGE

The Sukuma-Nyamwezi cluster constitutes regional languages in Tanzania. At least one major newspaper, Lumuli, is published in this language (Sukuma dialect) in Tanzania.

5 ORTHOGRAPHIC STATUS

A standardized orthography exists for both.

6 SETS OF LEARNING MATERIALS

Scheven (personal communication, 1984) states that Sukuma and Nyamwezi have been taught separately and that two sets of teaching materials would be needed, despite the mutual intelligibility of these dialects.

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