Hehe, also known by its native name Kihehe [kihehe], is a Bantu language that is spoken by the Hehe people of the Iringa region of Tanzania, lying south of the Great Ruaha River.[3] It was reported to have "Ngoni" features, that is, words of a Zulu-like language introduced when conquered by a Nguni or Zulu-like people in the early 19th century.[citation needed] However, other "Ngoni" speeches seem to have lost most of these distinctive features over the past 150-odd years, the language more resembling those of the neighbouring peoples.[citation needed] In the 1970s, it was estimated that 190,000 people spoke Hehe.[4] There has been some Bible translation (British and Foreign Bible Society). Hehe may be mutually intelligible with Bena.[3]
| Hehe | |
|---|---|
| Kihehe | |
| Native to | Tanzania |
| Ethnicity | Hehe |
Native speakers | 810,000 (2006)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | heh |
| Glottolog | hehe1240 |
G.62[2] | |
| Linguasphere | 99-AUS-ua |
Grammar
editHehe has 15 noun classes, marked with prefixes.[5]
Hehe has a complex tense-aspect-mood system.[6]
Phonology
editConsonants
edit| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ᵑɡ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | |
| voiced | v | (z) | ||||
| prenasal | ⁿz | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||
- [ʍ] can be heard as an allophone of /w/ among speakers in free variation.
- [z] occurs in the language, but is mainly heard as an allophone of /s/ after nasal sounds, or as a result of Swahili loanwords.[7]
- /ki/ becomes [t͡ʃ] before a vowel, e.g., chakulya 'food' from /ki-akulya/.[7]
Vowels
edit| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | o oː | |
| Low | a aː |
References
edit- ^ Hehe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ a b Dwyer, David J.; Yankee, Everyl (January 1985). African Language Resource Handbook: A Resource Handbook of the Eighty-two Highest Priority African Languages (PDF) (Prepublication ed.). East Lansing: Michigan State University. ED256170.
- ^ Voegelin, C. F.; Voegelin, F. M. (1977). "Bantu Proper = Narrow Bantu". Classification and Index of the World's Languages. Elsevier. p. 57. ISBN 0-444-00155-7.
- ^ Odden, David (2005). "Doing an Analysis". Introducing Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 177. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511808869.009. ISBN 978-0-521-53404-8.
- ^ Mtavangu, Norbert (2008). "Tense and aspect in Ikihehe". Occasional Papers in Linguistics. 3: 34–41.
- ^ a b Johnson, Martha B. (2015). A Contribution toward a Kihehe Grammar (Report).
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