Tonga

How tone moves inside Tonga words

Tonga has high and low tones placed by rules unlike those of other Bantu languages: a syllable low in Tonga may be high in the matching word elsewhere, and the reverse. High tones tend to leave their original place and shift to the left. In íbúsi, smoke, the high tone of the root -sí has moved onto the prefix ibu-, while ibusu, flour, keeps a low prefix because its root -su is low.

Verbs are harder. In ba-lá-bon-a, they will see, the tense marker la carries a high tone that the first person ndi-la-bon-a lacks, a puzzle both Meeussen and Goldsmith discuss. A. E. Meeussen began looking for the rules in 1963. Carter and Goldsmith analyse Tonga as having accents as well as tones; Pulleyblank accounts for the same data with tonal rules alone.

Where Tonga is spoken and taught

The Tonga live mainly in Zambia's Southern, Lusaka, Central and Western provinces and in northern Zimbabwe, and the Iwe, Toka and Leya speak it too. Zambian schools teach it as a first language across Southern, Lusaka and Central provinces. Valley Tonga is spoken mostly in the Zambezi valley, plateau Tonga around Monze District. In Zimbabwe it is a second language for some people and one of the official languages.

Why Tonga spelling still varies

Tonga was spoken only until missionaries arrived in the 19th century and wrote it down. Publications are growing in number, but the language is not completely standardised, and speakers of one dialect may spell the same word in different ways.