Mijikenda language

Mijikenda
Native to Kenya, Tanzania
Region Mombasa and Kwale districts in Kenya; Muheza and Tanga districts in Tanzania
Ethnicity Mijikenda, Chonyi
Native speakers
 1.9 million (2009 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
coh – Chonyi
dig – Digo
dug – Duruma
nyf – Giryama
seg – Segeju
Glottolog miji1238[2]
E.72,73,731,732[3]

Mijikenda is a Bantu dialect cluster spoken mostly in Kenya, with about 100,000 speakers in Tanzania.

Varieties

Maho (2009) lists four varieties as distinct languages:

  • North Mijikenda - ("Nyika") consists of several mutually intelligible dialects: Giryama, Kauma, Chonyi, Duruma, Rabai, Jibana, Kambe, Ribe.
  • Digo
  • Segeju
  • Degere (cf. Degere language (Cushitic))

Clicks

Clicks have been reported in ideophones from two dialects of Mijikenda, Digo and Duruma. (It is not known if they occur in the others.) These are tsya! /ʇ̃ǎ/ 'scram!' and /ʇ̃akule/ 'minute'. It is not known if these have any connection with the neighbouring Dahalo language.

References

  1. ↑ Chonyi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Digo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Duruma at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Giryama at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Segeju at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mijikenda". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
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