A Grammatical Sketch of Chitumbuka

The paper provides a grammatical sketch of Chitumbuka, a language widely spoken in the northern region of Malawi, and therefore used as a lingua franca in the region. The paper focuses on four key linguistic aspects of the language in its analysis. These include phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Data analysis followed interviews with native speakers of the language drawn from four districts of Mzimba, Rumphi, Nkhata Bay and Kasungu. There was also a significant reliance on data from published materials exploring the language. The paper agrees with available literature ascertaining the existence of 5 vowels and 27 consonant phonemes, a CV syllable structure, assimilation and strengthening processes in the language. It also shows that Chitumbuka is not a tonal language. The paper further ascertains the existence of 18 noun classes in the language and a complex verbal morphology with different types of markers for subject, object and tense. It also shows that the general sentence structure of Chitumbuka is Subject-Verb-Object with several other possible alterations. The paper ends with an exploration of loan words in the language and the realization of the notions of borrow and lend through a single lexical item.