Page 27 - SoMJ Vol 74 - No 1, 2021

Chichewa words in the Polyglotta Africana 17

Mateke’s dialect
The two works differ in length (Rebmann’s dictionary has 184 pages of small print
with two columns per page, while Koelle for each language has just 280 words);
but in addition, though both are obviously early forms of the modern Chichewa
(or Chiyanja), they are written in slightly different dialects. Rebmann’s informant
Salimini came from the Central Region of Malawi, somewhere near present-day
Lilongwe, while Koelle’s informant Mateke came from further south. One
difference is the prefix for classes 8 and 10, nowadays zi- or za-: for Salimini this
was bzi- or bvi- (bzaká bziŵíri ‘two years’), but for Mateke it was dzi- (dzaká
dziŵíri) (the same difference still exists today in the pair of words bzala / dzala
‘(to) plant’). Koelle refers to Mateke’s language as Márāwi, and Salimini also
notes that his own dialect, which he called Kikamtunda ‘the language of the
plateau’ differed from the dialect spoken further south, which he called Kimaravi.
Mateke adds the plural prefix dzi- (which Koelle writes as ‘tse’ or ‘tsi’)
regularly to plurals of class 10, e.g. dzinyumbá ‘houses’, dzimphasá ‘sleeping
mats’, dzinkhúku ‘hens’, where standard Chichewa has simply nyumbá, mphasá,
nkhúku. The word ndī̄́wo, pl. tsendī̄́wo (ndíwo, dzindíwo) ‘soup or relish’ is also
given the prefix, despite the fact that in standard Chichewa ndíwo is a plural word
11
already.
The prefix chi- of modern Chichewa was formerly ki-. Koelle writes both
forms. For example, the words chikóngono ‘elbow’, chikúni ‘log’, chalá chá phazí
‘toe’, chipandé ‘spoon’, chímanga ‘maize’ are all written with dṣi-; but kilázi
‘yam’, kinangwá ‘cassava’, kingwe ‘rope’, kíko ‘gourd’, kisóti ‘hat’, kitsúlo ‘iron’,
mkenga ‘sand’, and mkére ‘salt’ are all written with ki- or ke-. A similar variation
between chi and ki is found in Salimini’s Chichewa, as recorded by Rebmann.
Possibly these spellings represent a palatalised sound intermediate between ‘k’
and ‘ch’.
Another feature of both dialects is the use of the class 2 plural prefix ŵa,
which for most speakers today has become simply a. Thus Mateke, just like
12
Salimini, said ŵakázi ‘wives’, ŵaná ‘children’, ŵasíng’anga ‘traditional doctors’,
and ŵagalú ‘dogs’, where most speakers of modern Chichewa say akázi, aná,
asíng’anga, agalú. Yet there are some exceptions, such as the honorific plurals
amáyi ‘mother’, ataté ‘father’, and also the regular plurals anthu ákúdá ‘black
13
people’, atonkhwé ‘chameleons’, abwenzi ‘friends’. Salimini’s dialect is more
consistent with the use of ŵa, with plurals ŵamai, ŵatate, ŵanthu etc.

11 Also, in Rebmann, for example, ndíwo zá khwánya ‘bean-leaf relish’.
12 Some people, however, including the current President of Malaŵi, Lazarus Chakwera,
still pronounce /ŵ/ in certain words.
13 The noun bwenzí pl. abwenzí ‘friend’ is anomalous, since despite appearances it is not
class 1: the singular formerly belonged to the Bu- class (14) with plural ma (according to
Rebmann), but in modern Chichewa it belongs in the Li- class (5) with plural a.