1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Benue-Congo
  3. Genus: Bantoid

Chichewa

WALS coordinates: 14° S, 34° E

spoken in Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Nyanja
Routledge:
  • Nyanja
Other:
  • Cewa,
  • Chewa
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Morphology
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
Nominal Categories
Number of Genders Five or more
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
Nominal Syntax
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
Verbal Categories
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
Order of Subject and Verb SV
Order of Object and Verb VO
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
Simple Clauses
Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
Negative Morphemes Negative affix
Polar Questions Question particle
Comparative Constructions Exceed
Complex Sentences
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
Lexicon
Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te