Kwambi belongs to the Southwest Bantu language family and has about 33,000 speakers, mainly in northern Namibia. It is spoken in an area formerly known as Ovamboland, now the Oshana, Omusati Ohangwena and Oshikoto regions, by the Aa-kwambi people. Kwambi is classified as a dialect of Oshiwambo, a group of dialects or closely-related languages spoken in northern Namibia and southern Angola, and also in other parts of Namibia.
Kwambi is also known as Otshikwambi, Ochikwambi or Oshikwambi. There is no standard way to write it, and it is not used in schools, unlike other varieties of Ovambo, such as Ndonga and Kwanyama. A way to write Kwambi with the Latin alphabet was developed by Catholic missionaries in the 1920s, and it is currently used to some extent in the Roman Catholic Church in Namibia. There is a Kwambi translation of the New Testament of the Bible, published in 1951, and some other written material in Kwambi.
Download an alphabet chart for Kwambi (Excel)
Details of Kwambi pronunciation provided by Wolfram Siegel (PDF)
The letters b, d, g and j are only used in loanwords from other languages and foreign names.
Source: https://www.bible.com/en-GB/bible/4009/LUK.11.KWM
Source: https://www.bible.com/bible/1/LUK.11.KJV
Information about Kwambi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwambi_dialect
https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kwam1251
http://lars.eyra.se/Kwambi-Maho.pdf
Aka, Bafaw-Balong, Bangi, Basaa, Bemba, Bembe, Bena, Benga, Bhaca, Bube, Bukusu, Bulu, Central Teke, Chichewa, Chokwe, Chuwabu, Comorian, Dciriku, Digo, Duala, Eton, Ewondo, Fang, Ganda/Luganda, Gogo, Gusii, Gwere, Haya, Hehe, Herero, Ibinda, Ikizu, Ikoma, Jita, Kabwa, Kako, Kamba, Kiga, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kisi, Kogo, Komo, Kongo, Konjo, Koti, Kukuya, Kunda, Kuria, Kwambi, Lambya, Lingala, Loma, Lozi, Luba-Katanga, Luchazi, Lunda, Luvale, Luyana, Makaa, Makonde, Makhuwa, Mandekan, Maore, Masaaba, Mbama, Mbere, Mbukushu, Mbunda, Mbuun, Mende, Mongo, Mpiemo, Mushungulu, Mwani, Nambya, Nande, Ngoni, Nkore, North Teke, Northern Ndebele (South Africa), Northern Ndebele (Zimbabwe), Northern Sotho, Nyamwezi, Nyakyusa, Nyemba, Nyole, Nyoro, Nyungwe, Nzadi, Oroko, OshiWambo, Pagibete, Punu, Ronga, Safwa, Sena, Sengele, Shona, Soga, Songe, Southern Ndebele, Southern Sotho, Sukuma, Swahili, Swati, Tanga, Tembo, Tonga, Tooro, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswa, Tswana, Tumbuka, Umbundu, Venda, Vwanji, Xhosa, Yao, Yasa, Zigula, Zinza, Zulu
Languages written with the Latin alphabet
Page created: 01.04.25. Last modified: 01.04.25
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