The Tumbuka language is a Bantu language which is spoken in parts of Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania. The language of the Tumbuka people is called chiTumbuka — the chi- marker in front of Tumbuka means “the language of the”, and is understood in this case “the language of (the Tumbuka people)”. This marker is similar to shi- in shimaore, se- (si- in some parts of this language area) in seTswana / siTswana or ki- in kiSwahili, and iki- (or ki-) in Ikinyarwanda / Kinyarwanda, among several examples. The World Almanac (1998) estimates approximately 2,000,000 Tumbuka speakers exist in the aforementioned three countries. There are substantial differences between the form of Tumbuka spoken in urban areas (which borrows some words from Swahili and Chewa and the “village” or “deep” Tumbuka spoken in villages. The [kyela [Rumphi]] variant is often regarded as the most “linguistically pure”, and is sometimes called “real Tumbuka”. The Mzimba dialect has been strongly influenced by Zulu (chiNgoni), even so far as to have clicks in words like chitha “urinate”, which do not occur in other dialects. Senga “dialect” is not actually Tumbuka at all, but a Sabi language more closely related to Bemba.
