Sumbwa language

Not to be confused with Sumbawa language.

Sumbwa (or Sisumbwa/Lusumbwa) is a Bantu language spoken in northwestern Tanzania.

Sumbwa
Kisumbwa
Region	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Sumbwa people
Native speakers	361,000 (2009)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu (Zone F.20) Northeast Bantu Takama Nyamwezic Sumbwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	suw
Glottolog	sumb1240
Guthrie code	F.23[2]

The language is mainly spoken in Bukombe, Mbogwe and Geita districts (Geita Region); Kahama district (Shinyanga Region); Biharamulo district (Kagera Region) and Urambo district (Uyowa) – Tabora Region. Given the 2002 Census figures and population increases since then, the number of Sisumbwa speakers may be estimated as follows: Bukombe: 137,115; Kahama: 100,377; Geita: 79,490; Biharamulo: 4,306; Ilemela: 85; Kishapu: 110; Kwimba: 152; Misungwi: 103; Nzega: 358; Shinyanga (R): 2,260; Urambo: 36,755; This estimation gives 361,111 Sisumbwa speakers. These are the figures recorded in the Tanzania Language Atlas (2009:3), and this puts the language at no. 25 out of the 150 Tanzanian languages identified.

Sumbwa is still largely undescribed as there is an old grammar (Capus 1898), a trilingual dictionary (Kahigi 2008a) and description of some components of the morphology (Kahigi 2005; Kahigi 2008b).