Hehe language
| Hehe | |
|---|---|
| Kihehe | |
| Native to | Tanzania |
| Ethnicity | Hehe |
Native speakers | 1,200,000 (2016)[1] |
Niger-Congo?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | heh |
| Glottolog | hehe1240 |
G.62[2] | |
| Linguasphere | 99-AUS-ua |
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] In the 1970s, it was estimated that 190,000 people spoke Hehe.[4] A more recent estimate puts the number at 1,200,000.[5] There has been some Bible translation (British and Foreign Bible Society). Hehe may be mutually intelligible with Bena.[3]
There are four main dialects: Kalenga (in the centre of the region, north-west and west of Iringa), Koisamba (in the Rift Valley to the north-west), Sungwa (east of Iringa round the Udzungwa Mountains), and Mufindi (south of Iringa). Among other differences, Sungwa has sounds /ts/ and /dz/ which are absent from other dialects.[6]
Grammar
[edit]Hehe has 15 noun classes, marked with prefixes.[7]
Hehe has a complex tense-aspect-mood system.[8]
Phonology
[edit]Consonants
[edit]| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | n | ng | ||
| Stop/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | tS | k | |
| implosive | b | d | j | g | ||
| prenasal | mb | nd | ndz | g | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||
| voiced | (z) | |||||
| prenasal | nz | |||||
| Approximant | v | l | j | w | ||
Stops and affricates
[edit]- In the "stop/affricate" group, /tS/ and /ndz/ are described by Nyamahanga as affricates, the others being stops. /tS/ is described as palato-alveolar, and /ndz/ as palatal.[9]
Prenasalised consonants
[edit]- The five prenasalised consonants (/mb/, /nd/, /ndz/, /g/, /nz/) are voiced but not implosive. If they are preceded by a vowel, the vowel is usually (but not always) long.[10]
- When an implosive consonant is preceded by a nasal prefix such as N- 'I, me', the prefix assimilates with the following consonant and changes it to the appropriate prenasalised consonant; e.g. ku-deta 'to lie' when preceded by N- changes to ndeta 'I'll lie'; ku-ge:nda 'to walk' changes to ge:nda 'I'll walk'.[11]
- The combination of N- + a voiceless stop, however, does not result in a prenasalised consonant but a simple nasal, e.g. ku-pepa 'to smoke' becomes mepa 'I'll smoke'.[12]
- The voiced labial-velar approximant /w/ changes to /mbw/ when nasalised, e.g. ku-we:nda 'to like' > mbwe:nda 'I'll like'.[13]
- The phoneme /v/ is described by Nyamahanga as a labio-dental approximant. When nasalised it becomes mb, e.g. ku-valila 'to count' > mbalila 'I'll count'.[13] It cannot be followed by the vowel /o/ but changes to /w/ in this situation.[14]
- The labio-dental fricative /f/ when preceded by nasal N either changes to /v/ or remains as /f/; in either case the nasal is dropped, e.g. ku-fika 'to arrive' > vika or fika 'I'll arrive'.[15]
- The lateral approximant /l/ changes to /nd/ when prenasalised, e.g. ku-lima 'to till' > ndima 'I'll till'.
Consonants with glide
[edit]- Most consonants (with the exception of /v/, /j/, and /w/) can be labialised, that is, followed by a glide [w].[16] Nyamahanga treats these labialised consonants as separate phonemes to the unlabialised consonants. Labialised consonants tend to be followed by a long vowel, except in the final syllable of a word, e.g. muhwe:hwe 'fear'.[17]
- Most consonants (with the exception of /w/, /j/, /k/, /g/, /ng/, /s/, /h/) can be followed by the glide vowel [j]
Other consonants
[edit]- [z] occurs in the language, but is mainly heard in Swahili loanwords.[20]
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i i: | u u: | |
| Mid | e e: | o o: | |
| Low | a a: |
In addition to these ten vowels, Kihehe also has a syllabic /m/ (sometimes pronounced [mu] by some speakers). This can occur initially, medially, or finally, and can bear a tone, e.g. mtalam 's/he is a tough person' (four syllables, with a high tone on the first and third). Unlike the nasal in the nasalised consonants, this syllabic /m/ does not assimilate to the following consonant or cause a following implosive consonant to become plosive.[21]
Syllable structure
[edit]Apart from /m/, and the fact that words may begin with a vowel, every syllable in Kihehe consists of the form C(G)V, where C = consonant, V = vowel (long or short), and G = glide (/w/ or /j/). Two different vowels normally cannot follow each other. When a prefix such as tu- 'we' is added to a verb starting with a vowel, the vowels are combined into one syllable; e.g. tu + imba becomes twi:mba 'we will sing', with lengthening of the /i/ to compensate for the shortening of the /u/.[22] An exception is the prefix e: (rising tone), which is added to 3rd person singular verbs without assimilation of the vowels, e.g. e:-alya 's/he would have eaten'.[23]
Tones
[edit]Like most Bantu languages, Kihehe is a tone language. Tones can have both a lexical function (distinguishing one word from another) and a grammatical function (distinguishing different forms of the same verb).[24]
There are two levels of tones, high (H) and low (L). A non-final syllable with a short vowel can be either H or L. If a syllable with a long vowel has a tone, it will have either a rising tone (LH) or a falling one (HL). If a final syllable has a tone, it is always a falling tone.
As in other Bantu languages, the H and L tones are asymmetrical.[24] When two H tones come together, the second H tone is lost and becomes L (see Meeussen's rule). A noun with three syllables usually has only one H tone, but nouns with more than three syllables can have more than one H tone.[25]
References
[edit]- ^ Hehe at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Eberhard et al. in Ethnologue 2016.
- ^ Nyamahanga, Richard Mathias (2025). Aspects of the Phonology of Kihehe. Indiana University PhD thesis (open access), pp. 1-2.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Mtavangu, Norbert (2008). "Tense and aspect in Ikihehe". Occasional Papers in Linguistics. 3: 34-41.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 6, 37.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 16, 68-71.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 10, 117-8.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), p. 128.
- ^ a b Nyamahanga (2025), p. 134.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), p. 32.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), p. 185.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 12-14.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), p. 14.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 14, 52.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 58-9.
- ^ Johnson, Martha B. (2015). A Contribution toward a Kihehe Grammar (Report).
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 49-51.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), pp. 54-5.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), p. 65.
- ^ a b Nyamahanga (2025), p. 143.
- ^ Nyamahanga (2025), p. 142.