Chichewa Language Guide

Also spoken in
Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

The University of Pennsylvania's Chichewa program says that Chichewa is spoken in parts of Malawi, where it is an official national language along with English, and that it is also spoken in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The same page adds that in Mozambique the language is known as Chinyanja. This app follows the Malawian form of the language: its card for Ndili bwino, kaya inu?, "I am fine, and you?", notes that Malawi writes Ndili with l, while Zambian Nyanja says Ndiri, which the app does not use.

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Script & pronunciation

Chichewa is written in the same Roman alphabet as English, according to a Peace Corps language handbook, and it has five vowels, written a, e, i, o, u. The same handbook says that the sounds written p, t and k are unaspirated, while the aspirated versions are written with an h added: ph, th and kh. It warns that th in Chichewa texts should not be confused with the English th sounds, which do not exist in Chichewa. In this app's card for Ndikufuna khofi, "I would like coffee.", the kh at the start of khofi is one of these aspirated letter pairs. The handbook also describes ng' as a single nasal sound, like the one in English singing but occurring at the start of a word, as in ng'ombe; the app's card for Ng'ombe, "Cow", says the same, and the handbook describes plain ng as two sounds, as in the English word anger.

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Grammar essentials

According to a review of Sam Mchombo's grammar of Chichewa, every noun belongs to one of eighteen noun classes, class membership is in most cases indicated by an affix attached to the front of the noun stem, and a noun's class determines agreement in both the noun phrase and the verb. The Peace Corps handbook gives the pairs munthu, "person", and anthu, "persons", and chitseko, "door", and zitseko, "doors", as examples of a singular prefix replaced by a plural one. In this app's card for Chimbudzi chili kuti?, "Where is the toilet?", the card explains that chimbudzi is class 7, so the verb is chili.

The World Atlas of Language Structures lists the basic order of subject, object and verb in Chichewa as subject–verb–object. It also lists the negative morpheme as coming before the verb. The Peace Corps handbook says that a verb is made negative by adding si- before the agreement prefix, and gives Ndili bwino, "I'm well", against Sindili bwino, "I'm not well". This app's card for Sindikumvetsa, "I don't understand.", explains that the single written word is si- (not) plus ndi- (I) plus -ku- (now) plus -mvetsa (understand).

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Politeness & etiquette

The Peace Corps handbook says that the plural prefix a- is frequently used as a sign of respect when addressing one person, so that Abambo, "sir", and amayi, "ma'am", are more respectful forms of address than bambo and mayi. This app's card for Moni, "Hello", gives the same advice: to be more respectful, add a form of address such as Moni, abambo or Moni, amayi.

The handbook also says that plural pronouns convey respect, and that the second person plural mu- is used more often than the singular u- for that reason. This app's card for Muli bwanji?, "How are you?", explains muli as mu- (you, polite) plus -li (be), notes that the singular is Uli bwanji?, and advises travellers to keep to Muli.

For parting, the handbook gives Pitani bwino, "Go well", as the response to a farewell, spoken to the person who is going away. This app's cards divide the exchange the same way: Tsalani bwino, "Goodbye. (said by the person leaving)", and Pitani bwino, "Go well. (said to the one leaving)".

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