[Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] New language introduction

Thu Dec 2 19:17:05 UTC 2004

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The 2 million estimate is most definitely out of date and/or based only on those people that live in Tumbuka speaking regions.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