Fwe language

Fwe, or Chifwe, is a Bantu language spoken by 10,000 people along the Okavango River in the Zambezi region of Namibia and in the Western Province in Zambia. It is closely related to Kuhane, and is one of several Bantu languages of the Okavango which have click consonants.

Although under the pressure of Lozi and Kuhane (Subiya), Fwe speakers tend to have a positive attitude towards Fwe, and speaking Fwe is often considered an important part of one's identity,^[3] and thus underscores the vitality of the language.^[4]

Regional variation[edit]

Main phonological differences between Zambian and Namibian Fwe, as noted by both the speakers and seen in the data:^[5]

Morphological differences between Zambian and Namibian Fwe:

Phonology[edit]

Fwe syllables consist, at most, of a consonant, a glide, and a vowel.

Consonants[edit]

Consonant inventory of Fwe^[6]

		Bilabial	Dental/ Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Click	plain		ᵏǀ ᶢǀ
	prenasalized		ⁿ̥ǀ ⁿǀ
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p		t		k
	voiced	b		d		ɡ
	prenasalized	ᵐp ᵐb		ⁿt ⁿd		ᵑk ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless		f	s	ʃ		h
	voiced	β	v	z	ʒ
	prenasalized		ᶬf ᶬv	ⁿs ⁿz	ⁿʃ
Affricate	plain				tʃ
	prenasalized				ⁿtʃ ⁿdʒ
Tap				ɾ
Glide					j	w

• The plosives /p b d g/ are considered peripheral phonemes, as they are relatively infrequent in the lexicon. They are not reflexes of *p, *b, *d and *g as reconstructed for Proto-Bantu, but mainly appear in loanwords.^[7]
• Though there are numerous cases where /h/ contrasts with zero, i.e. where /h/ can-not be omitted, [h] is also often used as an epenthetic consonant, in which case it freely commutes with [w], [j] and zero. Phonemic /h/, on the other hand, cannot commute with a glide nor can it be dropped.^[8]

Vowels[edit]

Fwe has five contrastive vowel phonemes: /ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ a/. Vowels contrast in length, as seen in the minimal pairs below:^[9]

Tone[edit]

Fwe has two underlying tones, high and low. At the surface level, these tones may be articulated as high, low, falling, or downstepped high tone.^[10]

References[edit]

• Gunnink, Hilde (2018). A grammar of Fwe: a Bantu language of Zambia and Namibia (PhD thesis). Ghent University. hdl:1854/LU-8553074.
• Gunnink, Hilde (2022). A grammar of Fwe (pdf). Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.6669944. ISBN 9783961103881.