Mbukushu language
Bantu language spoken in southern Africa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mbukushu or Thimbukushu is a Bantu language spoken by 45,000 people along the Kavango East Region in Namibia, where it is a national language, and in Botswana, Angola and Zambia.
RegionKavango East
Native speakers
95,000 (2020)[1]In 2022, it was selected among a variety of Mother Tongue languages to be taught in Botswana Primary Schools in the year 2023.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Click | voiceless | ᵏǀ | |||||
| voiced | ᶢǀ | ||||||
| prenasal vl. | ᵑǀᵏ | ||||||
| prenasal vd. | ᵑǀᶢ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t̪ | t | tʃ | k | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | |||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd̪ | ⁿd | ⁿdʒ | ᵑɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | (s) | ʃ | h | |
| voiced | v | ð | (z) | ɣ | |||
| nasal | ᶬv | ⁿð | h̃ | ||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
- /s, z/ are only found in loanwords.
- /j/ may also be heard as a palatal fricative [ʝ].[3]
- Clicks may also range to being alveolar [ᵏǃ, ᶢǃ, ᵑǃᵏ, ᵑǃᶢ] or palatal [ᵏǂ, ᶢǂ, ᵑǂᵏ, ᵑǂᶢ].[4]
Mbukushu is one of several Bantu languages of the Kavango which have click consonants; Mbukushu has three: tenuis c, voiced gc, and nasalized nc, as well as prenasalized ngc, which vary between speakers as dental, palatal, and postalveolar.[5] It also has a nasal glottal approximant.
