Sena language
Sena is a Bantu language spoken in the four provinces of central Mozambique (Zambezi valley): Tete, Sofala, Zambezia and Manica. There were an estimated 900,000 native Sena speakers in Mozambique in 1997, with at least 1.5 million if including those who speak it as a second language. It is one of the Nyasa languages.
| Sena | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Mozambique, Malawi |
| Ethnicity | Sena |
Native speakers | 2,869,000 (2017–2020)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Zimbabwe (as 'Chibarwe') |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:seh – Mozambiquean Senaswk – Malawian Senabwg – Barwe |
| Glottolog | nucl1396 Nuclear Senamala1475 Malawi Senabarw1243 Barwe |
N.44,441 (N.45,46)[2] | |
| Linguasphere | 99-AUS-xi incl. varieties 99-AUS-xia...-xic; also 99-AUS-xj (chi-Rue) & 99-AUS-xm (chi-Podzo) |
Sena is spoken in several dialects, of which Rue (also called Barwe or Cibalke) and Podzo are divergent. The Sena of Malawi may be a distinct language. Barwe (Chibarwe) has official recognition in Zimbabwe.
Some remarks on Sena tenses can be found in Funnell (2004),[3] Barnes & Funnell (2005)[4] and in Kiso (2012).[5]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palato- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | ||||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |||||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | (ɗʲ) | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | p͡f | t͡s | p͡s | t͡ʃ | |||
| voiced | b͡v | d͡z | b͡z | d͡ʒ | ||||
| aspirated | t͡ʃʰ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sʷ | ʃ | h | ||
| voiced | v | z | zʷ | ʒ | ||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
- Labialized sounds /sʷ, zʷ/ can also be heard as retroflex [ʂ, ʐ] among different speakers.[6]
- /ɗ/ is heard as palatalized [ɗʲ] when followed by a /j/.
- The following sounds occur as prenasalized when after a homorganic nasal; [ᵐp, ᶬf, ᶬp͡f, ⁿt, ⁿs, ᶮt͡ʃ, ᵑk], [ᵐb, ᵐɓ, ᶬv, ᶬb͡v, ⁿd, ⁿɗ, ⁿz, ᶮd͡ʒ, ᵑɡ].[7]
References
- Mozambiquean Sena at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
Malawian Sena at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
Barwe at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) - Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- Funnell, Barry J. (2004)."A Contrastive Analysis of Two Varieties of Sena". MA dissertation, University of South Africa; (Introduction)
- Barnes, Lawrie; Funnell, Barry (2005) "Exploring the cross-border standardisation of Chisena". Language Matters: Studies in the Languages of Africa. Vol. 36.
- Kiso, Andrea (2012), "Tense and Aspect in Chichewa, Citumbuka, and Cisena". Ph.D. Thesis. Stockholm University.
- Ngunga, Armindo; Faquir, Osvaldo G. (2012). Padronização da Ortografia de Línguas Moçambicanas: Relatório do III Seminário. Maputo.
- Kishindo, Pascal J.; Lipenga, Allan L. (2007). Parlons Cisena: langue et culture du Mozambique. Paris: L'Harmattan.
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