http://www.unesco.org/webworld/babel/atlas |
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Africa:
Geographical
navigation |
language profile
| Variants |
KIGWENO, UGWENO |
| Language affiliation |
Niger Congo |
| Language affiliation (details) |
Niger-Congo, Bantu, Kilimanjaro Bantu (E. 65). |
| Geographic locations |
Tanzania (border with Kenya), around Mount Kilimanjaro, north eastern part and northernmost part of North Pare Hills. |
| Language situation |
Moribund language: only a few elderly speakers are left |
| General presentation of the language |
Gweno has 54% to 56% of lexical similarity with Chagga dialects, and 46% with Taita. Gweno is considered a dialect of the Chagga linguistic group. The main question concerning Gweno is its position in relation to the other three Chagga divisions (West Kilimanjaro, Central Kilimanjaro and Kombo). Gweno has relatively high percentage of vocabulary which does not appear in the others. The verb-system of Gweno shows a few significant differences from the other dialects. In synchronic terms, Gweno is the most different of the divisions. |
| Number of speakers |
Only a few speakers left, all of them very old |
| Socio-linguistic context – description |
Since the 1970s, children are no longer exposed to Gweno; instead they are brought up in Athu and Swahili only. The process of Gweno losing ground to Asu in North Pare began with the introduction of Asu speaking Mbaga settlers in about 1840. A succession of further circumstances has made the process continue through the following 150 years until now.
There were three processes that participated in the endangerment of the Gweno language:
- the development of bilingualism in Gweno and Asu;
- the development of a new Asu dialect, Athu, on a Gweno substratum; and
- the dropping of Gweno, and the sole retention of Athu, by bilingual Gweno communities.
However, a fourth process can also be considered. It is the gradual ‘Athu-ization’ of the Gweno language. Regarding the reasons for giving up the Gweno language, we can find the following:
- immigration of Asu speakers in Gweno territory;
- internal and external factors that led to a gradual dominance of Asu and their languages over Gweno;
- increase in importance of Asu language (favoured by missionaries since 1900) and Swahili (promotion of Swahili through the Tanzanian government in recent times);
- domain restriction of Gweno language use. |
| ISO standard codes (639-2 / 639-3) |
[GWE] |
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| Unicode support |
Yes |
This item can be found in the following topics:
· Tanzania
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