Nyanja language

Nyanja (Chinyanja) is a Bantu language spoken mainly in Zambia with historical and cross-border ties to Malawi. The language is related to Chewa language of Malawi but are not one. Nyanja differs to Chewa in that it has its own spellings, words and grammar. In Zambia, it is one of the seven officially recognised regional languages, particularly in Lusaka and parts of the Eastern Province.^[2]

Although often equated with or subsumed under Chewa language in classification schemes and the ISO code nya (Chichewa; Chewa; Nyanja),^[3] many scholars and Zambian educators treat Nyanja as a distinct cluster of varieties. These include Eastern Nyanja (closer to Malawian Chewa) and the urban Town Nyanja (Lusaka Nyanja), which differs from standard Chewa in phonology, grammar and lexicon.^[4][5]

Nyanja belongs to the Nyasa subgroup of Bantu (Guthrie Zone N). Glottolog lists Nyanja (glottocode nyan1308) with ISO 639-3 code nya, and situates it in the Nyanjaic branch alongside Chewa/Mang’anja.^[6][7] The ISO register groups the names "Chichewa; Chewa; Nyanja" under a single code for historical and mutual intelligibility reasons, but the label Nyanja is standard in Zambia and parts of Mozambique while Chewa/Chichewa predominates in Malawi.^[3]

Historically, Chinyanja (lake/lakeside language) referred to varieties spoken around Lake Malawi and the Shire River, including Mang’anja in southern Malawi. Malawi officially renamed the language Chichewa in 1968, while Zambia retained Nyanja for Eastern and Lusaka varieties.^[2]

In Zambia, Nyanja functions as a lingua franca in Lusaka and the Eastern Province, and is one of seven regional languages used in early schooling and some media and government publications.^[2] Nyanja (often called "Town Nyanja" in Lusaka) is widely heard in markets, public transport and urban popular culture; Eastern Nyanja remains closer to Chewa across the border in Malawi and to Nsenga in Zambia’s east.

In Mozambique, related Nyanjaic varieties are spoken in Tete Province and along the Zambezi corridor, where cross-border mobility with Zambia and Malawi is common. In Zimbabwe, a Lusaka-influenced urban Nyanja is used informally in Harare and other towns by migrants and cross-border traders.^[8]

Scholars typically distinguish at least two major varieties:

• Eastern Nyanja (sometimes just Nyanja), spoken in Eastern Province (Zambia) and contiguous areas; it is structurally close to Malawian Chewa and shares much core vocabulary.
• Town Nyanja (Lusaka Nyanja), an urban and contact variety of Lusaka influenced by Chewa/Nyanja, Bemba, English and other Zambian languages. It is the dominant everyday speech in Lusaka but differs from "standard Nyanja" taught in schools.^[5]

The mismatch between school-book Nyanja and the Lusaka vernacular has been cited as a barrier to literacy acquisition among children learning to read in Nyanja.^[4] It is also spoken in cities such as Ndola, Chipata, and Chinsali.

Like Chewa, Nyanja is a tonal language with contrastive high vs toneless syllables and grammatical tone patterns. Zambia adopted officially approved orthographies for seven regional languages (including Nyanja) in 1977; subsequent projects have explored with cross-border spelling rules across Nyasa languages.^[9]

Common orthographic and phonological tendencies distinguishing Lusaka Nyanja from standard Chewa include:

• use of ni- (subject/object and copular marker ‘be/I’) where Chewa has ndi- (e.g., nili bwino vs Chewa ndili bwino);
• plural subject marker ba- for class 2 where Chewa often has a-;
• agreement concords ya- (classes 5/6), va- (class 8), twa- (class 13), contrasting with Chewa la-/a-, za-, ta-;
• vocabulary items reflecting Bemba and English contact (e.g., wásha/kuwásha ‘to wash (clothes)’ vs Chewa kuchapa).^[5]

Nyanja exhibits the typical Bantu noun-class system and agglutinative verbal morphology. Descriptions of Town Nyanja note innovations in subject/object markers and concords relative to Chewa, and some levelling in tense-aspect morphology under urban contact conditions.^[5] Examples include ni- as 1st-person subject/object marker and copula, and ba- for class 2 subjects/objects (cf. Chewa a-).

Nyanja is used as a medium of instruction in the early years of primary schooling in parts of Zambia and appears in radio, church and community print materials. Policy studies in the 1990s highlighted disparities between school Nyanja and the urban vernacular and their effects on reading outcomes, fuelling subsequent curriculum and materials debates.^[4]

Chewa (Chichewa) and Nyanja are closely related Nyasa Bantu varieties with high mutual intelligibility, but they are not identical. In Malawi the standardized form is Chewa; in Zambia, teachers and linguists often distinguish Eastern Nyanja and the Lusaka koine from Malawian norms in grammar, spelling and vocabulary. International standards and some reference works continue to group the names together under nya, but Zambian usage and recent descriptive work support describing Nyanja as a distinct language cluster within the Nyanjaic branch.^[3]

• Chewa language
• Nyasa languages

• Gray, Andrew; Lubasi, Brighton; Bwalya, Phallen (2013). Town Nyanja: A learner’s guide to Zambia’s emerging national language. ISBN 9781300756002.
• Williams, Eddie (1998). Investigating bilingual literacy: Evidence from Malawi and Zambia (Report). Education Research Paper No. 24. UK DFID. Retrieved 24 August 2025.
• Beers, John (2021). Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Town Nyanja (Thesis). University at Albany, SUNY. Retrieved 24 August 2025.