Mozambique is a unique country in Africa because it’s one of the few that uses Portuguese as its lingua franca. Angola and a few smaller nations also speak Portuguese, but most African nations have designated English, French, or Arabic as their official lingua franca. However, while Portuguese is used in the government, at schools, and in mass media, most Mozambicans don’t speak Portuguese at home. Indeed, like many other countries spanning the massive African continent, Mozambique houses dozens of indigenous languages, with Ethnologue counting 43 total languages spoken in the southeastern African land. One of these languages—a particularly important one—is Changana.
Is Changana a Tsonga dialect or a distinct language in its own right? With the line between “language” and “dialect” blurry even for linguists, arguments can be made in either direction—but the fact remains that a whopping 4 million people in southern Mozambique speak Changana, many with great pride. Even if classified as a dialect, this makes Changana bigger than many languages. Changana’s uncertain status means that dedicated translation services for the tongue are extremely limited, but we here at TranslationServices.com are delighted to introduce our dedicated Changana translation team.
Would you like to see a quote for our Changana translation services? They’re free and available upon request—send a message today!
Making sense of the proud Mozambican tongue of Changana
The majority of Changana’s 4 million speakers live in southern Mozambique—specifically the provinces of Gaza, Inhambane, and Maputo—but the speaker community also stretches across the border into Zimbabwe and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). While the language is spoken widely in Maputo Province, the city of Maputo, the capital of the country, is home instead to Ronga, a closely related but different language. Some people consider both Changana and Ronga, along with Tswa (Hitswa), to be dialects of Tsonga, a major language in southern Africa.
Changana belongs to the Bantu language family, as do most other indigenous languages spoken in southern Africa. Of course, any Bantu language includes a dizzying number of noun classes, and Changana is no exception—the language features 10 classes (five groups of singular–plural pairs), each with its own associated concord used as a connector to adjectives, verbs, and other words that refer to a given noun. Verbal tense and aspect are largely expressed through particles, while most Bantu languages rely on inflection, though the difference is largely in the writing conventions and not in the grammar itself.
What kind of Changana translation services are you looking for?
We here at TranslationServices.com pride ourselves on providing high-quality translation services for languages that most other companies overlook, and Changana is a great example. Even though the tongue is spoken by millions, its classification as a Tsonga dialect means dedicated Changana translations are incredibly rare—but we’ve endeavored to put together a professional Changana translation team you can rely on. Composed of Changana translators from all over Mozambique, our team is sure to accommodate your translation needs.
Our Changana team is flexible—we translate in both directions. So, whether you’re a local Changana speaker looking to communicate with the broader world or whether you’re a member of the international community seeking to zero in on southern Mozambique, we can help. We’re here for clients from all walks of life, including the business, academic, and literary worlds, so if you need any form of specialty translation, all you have to do is let us know—we’ll match you to the right Changana translator for you. So, what are you waiting for? Send us your business plan, financial report, ad copy, white paper, questionnaire, research paper, poetry, book, app, game, website, or anything else today.
Sending us a message is the first step toward Changana translation—contact us now!