Mamma Mia wrote:
Thanks to you all for the
comments/suggestions/questions.
I'll try to address most of the queries/questions and maybe give a little bit more
information.
The 2 million estimate is most definitely out of date and/or based only on those people
that live in Tumbuka speaking regions. Tumbuka is the lingua franca of the North of
Malawi, a region of almost 3 million people of whom over two thirds speak the language. My
estimate is that at least a million people in Zambia speak the language and at least half
a million of people from these areas residing elsewhere speak the language. So 3.5 million
would be a very conservative estimate. There should be at the very least 5 thousand
Tumbuka speakers in the US alone and am sure at least 10 of these would contribute
something to the site.
In Tumbuka water is maji. Tumbuka, like most Banthu languages, is a phonetic language so
ma is pronounced as in man and ji as in Jeep. In another Malawian language, chiChewa,
it's madzi (dzi pronounced as in AIDS!) and in a language spoken in South Africa and
Botswana, seTswana, it's Metsi ('tsi' as in Nazi - please forgive my choice of
word here, I don't know any other word that has 'tsi' sound that I could have
used).
Merry Charismas and Happy New Year is: Christmas yiweme na chaka chipya chiweme;
there's no word for Christmas in Tumbuka so we use the English one but normally spell
it differently (phonetically) but I prefer spelling 'borrowed' words the original
way.
My estimate is that around 75% of the speakers of this language can read and write of
which at the very least 10 thousand have internet access.
I have written a few friends of mine and I hope they will be interested in the project. By
my estimate, at least five should join the group within the next 24 hours (I'm some
optimist!)! I didn't actually know that there's an entry for Tumbuka (in English)
on Wikipedia until I saw it on GerardM's email. Thanks for that. I'll definitely
add a few items to that this coming weekend.
Once again, thanks to you all for your contributions.
Dinnette
Hoi,
Thanks for this wonderfull answer. I have added Tumbuka as a language to
the Italian and the Dutch wiktionary.
Is seTswana the same as Tswana ?? If so, the ISO-639 code is tsn
chiChewa is also known as Nyanja ?? If so, the ISO-639 code is nya
I have added "Christmas yiweme na chaka chipya chiweme" for you to the
Italian wiktionary Christmas project.
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21
I have added maji on the Dutch wiktionary.
http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/water