Central Kilimanjaro, or Central Chaga, is a Bantu language of Tanzania spoken by the Chaga people.
Dialects There are several dialects: Moshi (Old Moshi, Mochi, Kimochi) Uru Mbokomu Wuunjo (Wunjo, Vunjo, Kivunjo), including Kiruwa, Kilema, Mamba, Moramu (Marangu), Mwika
Moshi is the language of the Chaga cultural capital, Moshi, and the prestige dialect of the Chaga languages.
Phonology
Vowels FrontCentralBackHighMidLow
In orthography, long vowels are written double. However, while older works suggest vowel length contrast may have formerly been phonemic, more recent works suggest the distinction has been partially or completely neutralized, unlike in West Kilimanjaro.
Consonants +Consonants in the Moshi dialectLabialAlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasal Stopvoiceless voiced NC Affricatevoiceless NC Fricativevoiceless Rhotictrill tap Lateral Approximant ~ Consonants become palatalized to when occurring before the front vowels . appears as a fricative when before the front vowels .
+Consonants in the Vunjo dialectLabialDental/AlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasal Stopvoiceless voiced() () NC‡ Affricatevoiceless NC‡ Fricativevoiceless voiced ~ ~ Rhotictrill †tap Lateral † Approximant ~ † and are restricted to loans. is native and contrasts with the allophone of but is rare. are dental, et al. are alveolar. The consonants and become palatal (and merge with the palatals) when occurring before the front vowels . appears as a fricative when before the front vowels . The dental lateral is usually velarized as . is also heard as postalveolar .
‡ NC are not prenasalized consonants but rather consonant sequences; in initial position, the nasal is syllabic.
† , and may be pronounced as fricatives. being heard as an alveolar fricative trill , the being heard as a retroflex fricative , with an extent of frication on the palatalized lateral as .Davey, Moshi & Maddieson (1982) Liquids in Chaga. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 54..
Tones Vunjo dialect has two underlying tones (high /H/ and low /L/) that surface as three level and five contour tones: [xH] (extra-high), [H], [L], falling [HL] and [xHL], rising [LH] and [LxH], and peaking [LHL], plus two downstepped tones [ꜝH] and [ꜝxH].
Bibliography Dalgish, Gerard M. (1978) 'The syntax and semantics of the morpheme ni in kiVunjo (Chaga)', Kiswahili, 48, 1, 42–56. Philippson, Gérard (1984) '"Gens des bananeraies" (Tanzanie): contribution linguistique à l'histoire culturelle des Chaga du Kilimanjaro' (Cahier no. 16.) Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations.
References