Sena language

Sena
Native to	Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe
Ethnicity	Sena
Native speakers	2,869,000 (2017–2020) [1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Nyasa Sena (N40) ? Sena
Dialects	Rue (Barwe) Podzo
Writing system	Latin script Mwangwego script
Official status
Official language in	Zimbabwe (as 'Chibarwe')
Recognised minority language in	Malawi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: seh  – Mozambiquean Sena swk  – Malawian Sena bwg  – Barwe
Glottolog	nucl1396   Nuclear Sena mala1475   Malawi Sena barw1243   Barwe
Guthrie code	N.44,441 (N.45,46) [2]
Linguasphere	99-AUS-xi; also 99-AUS-xj (Chi-Rue), 99-AUS-xk (Gombe), 99-AUS-xl (Sangwe), & 99-AUS-xm (Chi-Podzo)

A speaker of Barwe, a dialect of the Sena language. Portuguese is also spoken in this video.

Sena is a Bantu language spoken in the four provinces of central Mozambique (Zambezi valley): Tete, Sofala, Zambezia and Manica. There were an estimated 900,000 native Sena speakers in Mozambique in 1997, with at least 1.5 million if including those who speak it as a second language. It is one of the Nyasa languages.

Sena is spoken in several dialects, of which Rue (also called Barwe or Cibalke) and Podzo are divergent. The Sena of Malawi may be a distinct language. Barwe (Chibarwe) has official recognition in Zimbabwe.

Some remarks on Sena tenses can be found in Funnell (2004), ^[3] Barnes & Funnell (2005) ^[4] and in Kiso (2012). ^[5]

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar		Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			plain	lab.
Nasal		m	n			ɲ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t				k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ
	voiced	b	d				ɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ			( ɗʲ )
Affricate	voiceless	p͡f	t͡s	p͡s	t͡ʃ
	voiced	b͡v	d͡z	b͡z	d͡ʒ
	aspirated				t͡ʃʰ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	sʷ	ʃ			h
	voiced	v	z	zʷ	ʒ
Approximant			l			j	w
Trill			r

• Labialized sounds /sʷ,zʷ/ can also be heard as retroflex [ʂ,ʐ] among different speakers. ^[6]
• /ɗ/ is heard as palatalized [ɗʲ] when followed by a /j/.
• The following sounds occur as prenasalized when after a homorganic nasal; [ᵐp,ᶬf,ᶬp͡f,ⁿt,ⁿs,ᶮt͡ʃ,ᵑk], [ᵐb,ᵐɓ,ᶬv,ᶬb͡v,ⁿd,ⁿɗ,ⁿz,ᶮd͡ʒ,ᵑɡ]. ^[7]

References

1. Mozambiquean Sena at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
   Malawian Sena at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
   Barwe at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. Funnell, Barry J. (2004)."A Contrastive Analysis of Two Varieties of Sena". MA dissertation, University of South Africa; (Introduction)
4. Barnes, Lawrie; Funnell, Barry (2005) "Exploring the cross-border standardisation of Chisena". Language Matters: Studies in the Languages of Africa. Vol. 36.
5. Kiso, Andrea (2012), "Tense and Aspect in Chichewa, Citumbuka, and Cisena". Ph.D. Thesis. Stockholm University.
6. Ngunga, Armindo; Faquir, Osvaldo G. (2012). Padronização da Ortografia de Línguas Moçambicanas: Relatório do III Seminário. Maputo.
7. Kishindo, Pascal J.; Lipenga, Allan L. (2007). Parlons Cisena: langue et culture du Mozambique. Paris: L'Harmattan.