Chichewa

Story

Chichewa, also called Nyanja or Chinyanja in Zambia, is a Bantu language of the Eastern branch and the official national language of Malawi, where it is spoken by more than half the population as a first language. The language serves as a regional lingua franca across southeastern Africa, carrying traders, schoolchildren, and urban migrants across national borders that were drawn without regard for where the Chewa and Nyanja peoples actually lived. Its tonal system distinguishes meaning entirely by pitch, so the same syllable sequence spoken with a different melody can mean a completely different thing. Oral literature in Chichewa includes a rich tradition of gule wamkulu, a secret masked dance society that uses performance and coded language to preserve Chewa cosmology and governance traditions.

At a glance

• Also known as: Chichewa
• Family: Niger-Congo
• Region: Southern Africa
• Speakers: 20M (total speakers (l1 plus l2): approximately 17.7 million l1 (worlddata estimate) plus several million l2 speakers across the region)
• Writing system: Latin
• Greeting: Moni (hello)

Spoken in

Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe

Common questions