Haya language

Haya
Luhaya, Oruhaya
Region	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Haya people
Native speakers	1.3 million (2006)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Great Lakes Bantu West Nyanza Rutara South Rutara Haya
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hay
Glottolog	haya1250
Guthrie code	JE.22
ELP

Haya (Oruhaya) is a Bantu language spoken by the Haya people of Tanzania, in the south and southwest coast of Lake Victoria. In 1991, the population of Haya speakers was estimated at 1,200,000 people [1]. Its closest relative is the Nyambo language and it is also closely related to the languages of western Uganda such as Nyoro-Tooro and Nkore-Kiga which all form a group called Rutara.

Maho (2009) classifies JE221 Rashi as closest to Haya. It has no ISO code, but is covered by the ISO 639-3 code hay.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ	k
	voiced	b	d	d͡ʒ	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ		h
	voiced		z
Approximant			l	j	w

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Low		a aː

When a high vowel /i, u/ precedes a non-high vowel, it is realized as an approximant sound [j, w].

Tones

Two tones are present in Haya; high /v́/ and low /v̀/.

Grammar

Tense

Haya has nine tenses. These are the present progressive, the present habitual, the past habitual and the perfect, alongside two future tenses and three past tenses. The future tense F₂ refers to the distant future whilst F₁ refers to the near future. P₁ refers to the most recent past - events that have occurred earlier in the day, P₂ refers to events that happened yesterday and P₃, the most distant past, refers to events that happened before yesterday.

See also

• Betbeder, Paul; Jones, John. 1949. A handbook of the Haya language. Bukoba (Tanganyika): White Fathers Printing Press.
• Byarushengo, Ernest Rugwa; Duranti, Alessandro; Hyman, Larry M[ichael]. (Eds.) 1977. Haya grammatical structure: phonology, grammar, discourse. (Southern California occasional papers in linguistics (SCOPIL), no 6.) Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California. Pp 213.
• Herrmann, [Kapitän] C. 1904. Lusíba, die Sprache der Länder Kisíba, Bugábu, Kjamtwára, Kjánja und Ihángiro. Mitteilungen des Seminars für orientalische Sprachen, 7 (III. Abt.), pp. 150–200.
• Kaji, Shigeki. (Ed.) 1998. Haya. (Textbooks for language training.) Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
• Kaji, Shigeki. 2000. Haya vocabulary. (Asian and African lexicon series, no 37.) Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Pp 532.
• Kuijpers, Em. 1922. Grammaire de la langue haya. Boxtel (Hollande): Prokuur van de Witte Paters. Pp 294.
• Maho, Jouni & Bonny Sands. 2002. The languages of Tanzania: a bibliography. (Orientalia et africana gothoburgensia, no 17.) Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Pp ix, 428.
• Rehse, Hermann. 1912/13. Die Sprache der Baziba in Deutsch-Ostafrika. Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen, 3, pp. 1–33, 81–123, 201–229.

External links

• https://web.archive.org/web/20061004195910/http://www.african.gu.se/tanzania/weblinks.html
• http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/CBOLD/Docs/TLS.html (This webpage contains a Haya wordlist.)