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 |
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] In the 1970s, it was estimated that 190,000 people spoke Hehe. [4] A more recent estimate puts the number at 1,200,000. [5] There has been some Bible translation (British and Foreign Bible Society). Hehe may be mutually intelligible with Bena. [3]
There are four main dialects: Kalenga (in the centre of the region, north-west and west of Iringa), Koisamba (in the Rift Valley to the north-west), Sungwa (east of Iringa round the Udzungwa Mountains), and Mufindi (south of Iringa). Among other differences, Sungwa has sounds /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ which are absent from other dialects. [6]
Hehe has 15 noun classes, marked with prefixes. [7]
Hehe has a complex tense-aspect-mood system. [8]
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
Stop/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | |
implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | ɠ | ||
prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ⁿdʑ | ᵑɡ | ||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||
voiced | ( z ) | |||||
prenasal | ⁿz | |||||
Approximant | ʋ | l | j | w |
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i iː | u uː | |
Mid | e eː | o oː | |
Low | a aː |
In addition to these ten vowels, Kihehe also has a syllabic / m̩ / (sometimes pronounced [mu] by some speakers). This can occur initially, medially, or finally, and can bear a tone, e.g. ḿtalám̩'s/he is a tough person' (four syllables, with a high tone on the first and third). Unlike the nasal in the nasalised consonants, this syllabic /m̩/ does not assimilate to the following consonant or cause a following implosive consonant to become plosive. [21]
Apart from /m̩/, and the fact that words may begin with a vowel, every syllable in Kihehe consists of the form C(G)V, where C = consonant, V = vowel (long or short), and G = glide (/w/ or /y/). Two different vowels normally cannot follow each other. When a prefix such as tu-'we' is added to a verb starting with a vowel, the vowels are combined into one syllable conforming to this pattern, e.g. tu + íᵐba becomes tʷíːᵐba'we sing', with lengthening of the /i/ to compensate for the shortening of the /u/. [22] An exception is the prefix ĕː (rising tone), which is added to 3rd person singular verbs without assimilation of the vowels, e.g. ĕː-alyá's/he would have eaten'. [23]