Bemba language

Bemba, is a Bantu language spoken primarily in north-eastern Zambia by the Bemba people.

History

Bemba is spoken in rural and urban areas of the region, and is one of Zambia's seven recognized regional languages.

Dialects

Bemba has several dialects, which include Chishinga, Lomotwa, Ngoma, Nwesi, Lala, Luunda, Mukulu, and Ng’umbo. The Twa of Bangweulu speak another dialect of Bemba.

Phonology and orthography

The orthographical system in common use, originally introduced by Edward Steere, is quite phonetic. Its letters, with their approximate phonetic values, are given below.

Letter:

C/Ch

Ng'

Value:

It has become increasingly common to use 'c' in place of 'ch'. In common with other Bantu languages, as affixes are added, combinations of vowels may contract and consonants may change. For example, 'aa' changes to a long 'a', 'ae' and 'ai' change to 'e', and 'ao' and 'au' change to 'o'. The nasal 'n' changes to 'm' before 'b' or 'p', and is pronounced ŋ before 'k' or 'g'; after 'n', 'l' changes to 'd'. These rules will all be implicit in the tables given below.
Like many Bantu languages, Bemba is tonal, with two tones. However, tone has limited effect on meaning as the number of words that would otherwise be confused is small. Stress tends to fall on the prefix, when it exists, and can lead to subtle differences of meaning.
Detailed analyses of the tonology and phonology of Bemba can be found in work like: Bickmore & Kula, Kula & Bickmore, Hamann & Kula and Kula & Hamann.

Grammar

Many of the main features of Bemba grammar are fairly typical of Bantu languages: it is agglutinative, depends mainly on prefixes, has a system of several noun classes, a large set of verbal aspects and tenses, very few actual adjectives, and, like English, has a word order that is subject-verb-object. Most of the classification here is taken from that given by Schoeffer, Sheane and Cornwallis.

Nouns

Bemba nouns are divided into several partially-semantic classes. They are indicated by their prefixes and are generally similar but not always identical to the concord prefixes, attached to verbs they govern, adjectives qualifying them, and pronouns standing for them. By one convention, based on the plural, they are arranged as follows :

Class	Singular prefix	Concord prefix	Plural prefix	Concord prefix	Notes
1	mu-, mw-, m-	a, mu, u/w	ba-	ba-	persons, and several inanimate nouns
2	mu-	u-	mi-	i-	generally inanimate nouns, and most trees and fruit
3	n-, lu-	i, lu-	n-	shi-	generally not human nouns
4	chi-/ch-	chi-/ch-	fi-/fy-/f-	fi-/fy-/f-	augmentatives, kinds, languages
5	li-, ku-, bu-, lu-	same as noun prefix	ma-	ya-	Plural can be used for singulars of class 3 to emphasise larger number or size
6	ka-	ka	tu-	tu-	diminutives
7	bu-	bu-	none	none	abstract nouns
8	ku-	ku-	none	none	infinitives
9	ku-, mu-, pa-	same as noun prefix			not strictly a noun class

The prefixes in class 9 essentially indicate case: 'ku-' corresponds to 'to' or 'from', 'mu-' to 'in', 'into', or 'out of', and 'pa-' to 'at'.

Adjectives

As is common in Bantu languages, adjectives follow the words they qualify, and take the adjectival concord prefixes, but there are not many of them in the strictest sense. Adverbs, relative clauses, or 'descriptors', often fulfil their function instead. Descriptors are placed after the noun, with the particle '-a', and the relevant pronoun prefix between them: chintu cha nomba, 'new thing'.

Numerals

The numbers from 1 to 10 are:

English:	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Bemba:	-mo	-bili	-tatu	-ne	-sano	-mutanda	-cine lubali	-cine konse konse	-pabula	-ikumi

The numerals 1-5 take adjectival concord prefixes. The numerals 6-10 are left unchanged. 'Ikumi' has the plural 'makumi', which can be used as a noun with 'na' to form all numbers up to 99: for example, makumi yatatu na pabula, 'thirty nine'. 100 is 'mwanda', with plural 'myanda'.

Pronouns

The class-independent personal pronouns are: 'ine', 'iwe', 'ifwe', 'imwe'. These are absolute, in the sense that they stand alone, and cannot appear as subjects or objects as they are. There are separate possessive pronouns, and the third person pronouns depend on class. There are also demonstrative pronouns, divided both by class and into three kinds by deixis, and relative pronouns are formed from these.

Verbs

Verbs have simple forms, usually ending in '-a', and are agglutinated according to person, number and class of subject and object, tense, mood, voice, aspect and whether they are affirmative or negative. Further, their stems change to indicate various other shades of meaning. The following rules can all be combined in a mostly straightforward manner, Bemba being agglutinative and not inflective, but there are still some exceptions.

Subject and object prefixes

The subject and object prefixes for the personal pronouns are given below.
These can vary slightly according to mood, and the subject prefixes change for negative verbs. Where they are different, object prefixes are given in brackets.
The subject prefix is placed first, and then the object prefix. When the subject or object is a specific noun in a given class, the verbal concord prefix of this class is used, and the negative form adds the prefix 'ta-' before this.

Tenses and Aspects

The classification given here is that presented by Schoeffer.
Some of these require a modified stem, changing final 'a' to 'ile' if the preceding vowel is 'a', 'i' or 'u', and to 'ele' if it is 'e' or 'o', or, if the last consonant is nasal, changing the 'a' to 'ine' or 'ene' accordingly. There are irregularities in several verbs.
The tense prefixes are given below. They come after the subject and object prefixes, and before the verb stem, except for the recent, completed or historic past in 'na-', which appears at the very beginning. Stress is marked with an acute accent.

Tense/aspect	Prefix	Stem	Notes
Present continuative	le	unmodified	Used for verbs of action to indicate a progressive action; can be used adjectivally, and even as an immediate future.
Present definite	a	unmodified	Used for verbs of state, and intransitive verbs
Stative, necessary habitual	Ordinary form; no prefix	unmodified	Indicates a state that is always true, or a habitual action; connotes necessity of the action
Voluntary habitual	la	unmodified	For habitual actions, connoting that they are voluntary, or may otherwise not be necessary; used only for verbs of state; can be used in subordinate clauses
Immediate past	a	unmodified	For actions occurring 'today', or 'nowadays'
Recent, completed or historic past	na-	unmodified	For actions completed today; can be used in a historic sense, but does not emphasise a distant past
Specific past		modified	Also used for actions done 'today' or 'nowadays', but emphasising more distance in time than the previous two; used in relative clauses
Simple past of yesterday	ali	unmodified	The stress must not be on the 'a' of the prefix
Simple past of yesterday	a	modified	The stress must not be on the prefix
Remote past simple	á	modified
Remote past of duration	ali	modified	For remote actions whose effects are still present, or for states established in the remote past which have not changed
Remote past definite, past perfect	áli	unmodified	A remote past further distant than some other relevant time
Past imperfect or habitual	ale	unmodified	Used for actions once, but no longer, habitual
Immediate future	ala	unmodified
Immediate progressive or habitual future	akula	unmodified
Proximal future	le	unmodified	For future states and conditions to be established shortly, but not necessarily immediately
Future indefinite	ka	unmodified	For actions and states at some unknown time in the future
Future indefinite habitual	kala	unmodified	For habitual actions and states at some unknown time in the future