Talk:Chichewa language

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Contents 1 Status in Zambia? 2 Dictionaries -> External links 3 Chingoni 4 Scouting in Malawi 5 Ninja

[edit] Status in Zambia?

I'm getting somewhat conflicting information on whether C(h)inyanja is an "official" language of Zambia or not: it appears that English is the official language, but Cinyanja is one of the officially recognized languages. What does this mean in practice? Jpatokal 12:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The PanAfrican Localisation Zambia page at http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Zambia may be of interest. Leclerc's online "Aménagement linguistique..." (referenced under #10) quotes a line from the consitution on the official language being English. The PanAfriL10n Zambia page quotes an author as saying several other languages are "official," but he likely was using terminology not as strictly or in his own way.

Zambia is of course multilingual and Nyanja is one of several important languages in wide use if not in clear legal status. Leclerc notes that the linguistic policy is not well developed. Of possible interest was a statement by a schoolteachers' union in Zambia last year requesting that science and math instruction be switched to Zambian languages to increase children's understanding [1]. A12n 27 September 2006

[edit] Dictionaries -> External links

I changed "Dictionaries" to "External links" since (1) several items are not dictionaries (and I added another), and (2) the latter is often found on other language pages. --A12n 00:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chingoni

Is Chingoni really a Nyanja/Chewa dialect? At least this article, which I think qualifies as an authoritative source, identifies Chingoni as the language of the Ngoni people belonging to the Nguni languages, clearly a far cry form Nyanja. Edricson 21:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. As your source points out, the Ngoni people in Malawi today speak Chichewa, among other languages, but their own language, Chingoni, is distinct from Chichewa. The two languages are not mutually intelligible.Wawot1 04:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scouting in Malawi

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Chichewa? Thanks! Chris 03:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ninja

Has anyone ever seen this language referred to as "Ninja?" I saw it listed as such on a résumé I received today. QuinnHK (talk) 23:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)