Hehe language

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] It was reported to have "Ngoni" features, that is, words of a Zulu-like language introduced when conquered by a Nguni or Zulu-like people in the early 19th century.^{[citation needed]} However, other "Ngoni" speeches seem to have lost most of these distinctive features over the past 150-odd years, the language more resembling those of the neighbouring peoples.^{[citation needed]} In the 1970s, it was estimated that 190,000 people spoke Hehe.^[4] There has been some Bible translation (British and Foreign Bible Society). Hehe may be mutually intelligible with Bena.^[3]

Hehe
Kihehe
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Hehe
Native speakers	810,000 (2006)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Bena–Kinga (G60) Hehe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	heh
Glottolog	hehe1240
Guthrie code	G.62[2]
Linguasphere	99-AUS-ua

Grammar

Hehe has 15 noun classes, marked with prefixes.^[5]

Hehe has a complex tense-aspect-mood system.^[6]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ		h
	voiced	v	(z)
	prenasal		ⁿz
Approximant			l	j	w

• [ʍ] can be heard as an allophone of /w/ among speakers in free variation.
• [z] occurs in the language, but is mainly heard as an allophone of /s/ after nasal sounds, or as a result of Swahili loanwords.^[7]
• /ki/ becomes [t͡ʃ] before a vowel, e.g., chakulya 'food' from /ki-akulya/.^[7]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Low		a aː

References

1. Hehe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. Dwyer, David J.; Yankee, Everyl (January 1985). African Language Resource Handbook: A Resource Handbook of the Eighty-two Highest Priority African Languages (PDF) (Prepublication ed.). East Lansing: Michigan State University. ED256170.
4. Voegelin, C. F.; Voegelin, F. M. (1977). "Bantu Proper = Narrow Bantu". Classification and Index of the World's Languages. Elsevier. p. 57. ISBN 0-444-00155-7.
5. Odden, David (2005). "Doing an Analysis". Introducing Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 177. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511808869.009. ISBN 978-0-521-53404-8.
6. Mtavangu, Norbert (2008). "Tense and aspect in Ikihehe". Occasional Papers in Linguistics. 3: 34–41.
7. Johnson, Martha B. (2015). A Contribution toward a Kihehe Grammar (Report).