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The Tumbuka language is a Bantu language which is spoken in the Northern Region of Malawi and also in the Lundazi district of Zambia.〔(Michigan State University African Studies Center information page ).〕 It is also known as Chitumbuka or Citumbuka — the ''chi-'' prefix in front of ''Tumbuka'' means "the language of", and is understood in this case to mean "the language of (the Tumbuka people)". Tumbuka belongs to the same language group (Guthrie Zone N) as Chewa and Sena.〔Kiso (2012), pp.21ff.〕 The World Almanac (1998) estimates that there are approximately 2,000,000 Tumbuka speakers, though other sources estimate a much smaller number. The majority of Tumbuka speakers are said to live in Malawi.〔 Tumbuka is the most widely spoken of the languages of Northern Malawi, especially in the Rumphi, Mzuzu, and Mzimba districts.〔University of Malawi (2006) Language Mapping Survey for Northern Malawi.〕 There are substantial differences between the form of Tumbuka spoken in urban areas of Malawi (which borrows some words from Swahili and Chewa) 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".〔 Kamwendo (2004), p.282.〕 The Mzimba dialect has been strongly influenced by Zulu (chiNgoni),〔University of Malawi (2006), p.27.〕 even so far as to have clicks in words like ''chitha'' "urinate", which do not occur in other dialects. The Tumbuka language suffered during the rule of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, since in 1968 as a result of his one-nation, one-language policy it lost its status as an official language in Malawi. As a result, Tumbuka was removed from the school curriculum, the national radio, and the print media.〔 Kamwendo (2004), p.278.〕 With the advent of multi-party democracy in 1994, Tumbuka programmes were started again on the radio, but the number of books and other publications in Tumbuka remains low.〔See Language Mapping Survey for Northern Malawi (2006), pp.38-40 for a list of publications.〕 ==Tumbuka spelling== Two systems of writing Tumbuka are in use: the traditional spelling (used for example in the Chitumbuka version of Wikipedia and in the newspaper ''Fuko''), in which words such as ''banthu'' 'people' and ''chaka'' 'year' are written with 'b' and 'ch', and the new official spelling (used for example in the Citumbuka dictionary published online by the Centre for Language Studies and in the online Bible), in which the same words are written with 'ŵ' and 'c', e.g. ''ŵanthu'' and ''caka''. (The sound 'ŵ' is a closely rounded () pronounced with the tongue in the close-i position.)〔Atkins, Guy (1950) ("Suggestions for an Amended Spelling and Word Division of Nyanja" ) ''Africa: Journal of the International African Institute'', Vol. 20, No. 3, p.205.〕 There is some uncertainty over where to write 'r' and where 'l', e.g. ''cakulya'' (Dictionary) or ''cakurya'' (Bible) 'food'. (In fact () and () are allophones of the same phoneme.) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tumbuka language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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