Chokwe | |
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Spoken in | Angola Democratic Republic of the Congo Zambia |
Native speakers | 1,000,000+ (date missing) |
Language family |
Niger–Congo
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Official status | |
Official language in | Angola (national language) |
Regulated by | Instituto de Línguas Nacionais |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | cjk |
Chokwe is the Bantu language spoken by the Chokwe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia. It is recognized as a national language of Angola, where about 456,000 people spoke it as of 1991. Another half a million speakers lived in the Congo in 1990, and some 44,200 in Zambia as of 1986.[1] Angola's Instituto de Línguas Nacionais (National Languages Institute) has established spelling rules for Chokwe with a view to facilitate and promote its use. It is used as a lingua franca in eastern Angola.
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