Makhuwa language

Image:Mozambique025.jpg|thumb|250px|A Makhuwa family in Nampula.
Makhuwa or Mozambican is the primary Bantu language of northern Mozambique. It is spoken by roughly 5.8 million Makua people, who live north of the Zambezi River, particularly in Nampula Province, which is virtually entirely ethnically Makua. It is the most widely spoken indigenous language of Mozambique.
Apart from the languages in the same group, eMakhuwa is distinguished from other Bantu languages by the loss of consonant + vowel prefixes in favour of e; compare epula, "rain", with Tswana pula.
Long and short vowels distinguish five vowel qualities /i e a o u/:

omala - to finish
omaala - to paste, stick
omela - to sprout, bud
omeela - to share out

The consonants are more complex: postalveolar tt and tth exist, both p and ph are used. Both x and h exist while x varies with s. Regionally, there are also θ, ð, z and ng. For instance in eLomwe, to which Makhuwa is closely related, the tt of eMakhuwa is represented by a "ch" as in English "church".

Phonology

Tone

In Makhuwa, tone is distinctive. In the eNahara dialect, there are two tones, low and high, and the tone-bearing unit in Makhuwa phonology is the mora. Low tone is unmarked in writing, while high tone is indicated by an acute accent above vowels or nasals or next to tone-bearing consonants.

Dialects

The names of the dialects vary in different sources. The shibboleth or distinctive variant in the dialects is the treatment of the s:

eSamgagi dialect: odhiva
eSangagi dialect: θtiva
eSaaka dialect: ociva
eNahara dialect: oziva - all meaning "agreeable, pleasant"

Maho lists the following dialects:

Central Makhuwa
Meetto
Chirima
Marrevone
eNahara
eSaka
Ruvuma Makhuwa

Mutual intelligibility between these is limited. Central Makhuwa is the basis of the standard language. Ethnologue lists Central Makhuwa, Meetto–Ruvuma, Marrevone–Enahara, and Esaka as separate languages, and Chirima as six languages.
The population figures are from Ethnologue for 2006. They tally 3.1 million speakers of Central Makhuwa and 3.5 million of the other varieties, though the Ethnologue article for Central Makhuwa covers Marrevone and Enahara, so these might be double counted.

Vocabulary

The following is a sample vocabulary in the Central Makhuwa dialect:

Makhuwa	English	Notes
apakati	avocado	borrowed from Portuguese abacate
ovenya	to wake up	-
alyu	garlic	borrowed from Portuguese alho
mwana	child	Cognate with Swahili mwana
ophenta	to love	Cognate with Swahili kupenda
ekamaama	light

Reading material in eMakhuwa

Muluku Onnalavuliha Àn'awe - Ipantte sikosolasiwe sa Biblia Editorial Verbo Divino, Estella, Navarra, 1997.

Sample text

6 Moovirikana ni mamwene ale ootakhala, aakhala atthu akina yaawenrye woona ntata na Muluku, nnaamwi awo okathi mukina yaarina makhalelo mamosaru yaarina aya atthu ale akina aromoliwe.
Translation
6 In contrast with those wicked kings, others saw God's hand, even though they were in the same situation as those mentioned above.