Nyanja

[nyan-juh]

noun

1. a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and Zambia.

Nyanja

/ ˈnjændʒə /

noun

1. a member of a Negroid people of central Africa, living chiefly in Malawi

2. the language of this people, belonging to the Bantu group of the Niger-Congo family. Nyanja forms the basis of a pidgin used as a lingua franca in central Africa

Word History and Origins

Origin of Nyanja¹

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

I tend, when I think in Zambian words, to think in Bemba, not Nyanja.

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Nyoni, working in English and the local language of Nyanja, has an unforced way of dealing with themes like exploitation, oppression and superstition, showing how easy it can be for nonsense to pass itself off as sense.

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In a Nyanja story which I have in MS., some children go out into the bush to gather wild fruit, and are cut off on their return by the rising of the river.

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In the Nyanja story, Leopard and Hare are mentioned as meeting with refusals, before the Hyena arrives on the scene.

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A translation of the Nyanja story may be found in the Contemporary Review for September, 1896.

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