Central Kilimanjaro language

Central Kilimanjaro, or Central Chaga, is a Bantu language of Tanzania spoken by the Chaga people.

Dialects

There are several dialects:

Consonants

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

|+Consonants in the Moshi dialect

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

|+Consonants in the Vunjo dialect

! colspan="2" |

!Labial

!Dental/<br>Alveolar

!Post-<br>alveolar

!Palatal

!Velar

!Glottal

|-

! colspan="2" |Nasal

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! rowspan="3" |Stop

!<small>voiceless</small>

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!<small>voiced</small>

|()

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|()

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!<small>NC</small>^‡

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! rowspan="2" |Affricate

!<small>voiceless</small>

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!<small>NC</small>^‡

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! rowspan="2" |Fricative

!<small>voiceless</small>

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!<small>voiced</small>

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| ~ <br>

| ~ <br>

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! rowspan="2" |Rhotic

!<small>trill</small>

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| ^†

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!<small>tap</small>

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! colspan="2" |Lateral

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| ^†

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! colspan="2" |Approximant

| ~

|colspan=2| ^†

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|}

• and are restricted to loans. is native and contrasts with the allophone of but is rare.
• are dental, et al. are alveolar.
• The consonants and become palatal (and merge with the palatals) when occurring before the front vowels .
• appears as a fricative when before the front vowels .

Tones

Vunjo dialect has two underlying tones (high /H/ and low /L/) that surface as three level and five contour tones: [xH] (extra-high), [H], [L], falling [HL] and [xHL], rising [LH] and [LxH], and peaking [LHL], plus two downstepped tones [ꜝH] and [ꜝxH].