For other uses see Kamba language (disambiguation).
| Kamba | |
| Nativename: | Kikamba |
| States: | Kenya, Tanzania |
| Region: | Machakos, Kitui, Makueni, and Shimba Hills |
| Ethnicity: | Akamba |
| Speakers: | 4.6 million |
| Date: | 2019 census |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Speakers2: | 600,000 L2 speakers |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Southern Bantoid |
| Fam7: | Bantu |
| Fam8: | Northeast Bantu |
| Fam9: | Thagiicu |
| Fam10: | East Thagiicu |
| Dia1: | Masaku |
| Dia2: | Mumoni |
| Dia3: | North Kitui |
| Dia4: | South Kitui |
| Iso2: | kam |
| Lc1: | kam |
| Ld1: | Kamba |
| Lc2: | dhs |
| Ld2: | Dhaiso (Thaisu) |
| Glotto: | kamb1297 |
| Glottorefname: | Kamba (Kenya) |
| Guthrie: | E.55–56 |
| Elp: | 4079 |
| Elpname: | Dhaiso |
Kamba,[1] or Kikamba, is a Bantu language spoken by millions of Kamba people, primarily in Kenya, as well as thousands of people in Uganda, Tanzania, and elsewhere. In Kenya, Kamba is generally spoken in four counties: Machakos, Kitui, Makueni, and Kwale. The Machakos dialect is considered the standard variety and has been used in translation. The other major dialect is Kitui.[2]
Kamba has lexical similarities to other Bantu languages such as Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu.
The Swedish National Museums of World Culture holds field recordings of kamba language made by Swedish ethnographer Gerhard Lindblom in 1911–12.[3] Lindblom used phonograph cylinders to record songs along with other means of documentation in writing and photography. He also gathered objects, and later presented his work in The Akamba in British East Africa (1916).
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | ||
| Close-mid | e eː | o oː | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː | ||
| Open | a aː |
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | (b) | t (d) | k (ɡ) | |||
| Affricate | tʃ (dʒ) | |||||
| Fricative | β | ð | s (z) | |||
| Nasal | m | n̪ | n | ŋ | ||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | labial | ɥ | w | |||
| central | (ð̞) | j | ||||