Tongwe language

Tongwe (Sitongwe) and Bende (Sibende) constitute a clade of Bantu languages coded Zone F.10 in Guthrie's classification. According to Nurse & Philippson (2003),^[3] they form a valid node. Indeed, at 90% lexical similarity they may be dialects of a single language.

Tongwe
Bende
Native to	Tanzania
Native speakers	(40,000 cited 1999–2001)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu (Zone F.10) Tongwe
Dialects	Tongwe Bende
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: tny – Tongwe bdp – Bende
Glottolog	tong1320  Tongwe bend1258  Bende
Guthrie code	F.10 (F.11–12)[2]
ELP	Bende

Phonology

Consonants^[4]

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d	c ɟ	k g
Fricative	f	s z			h
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant	w		j

Vowels^[4]

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

Additionally, Bende has four tones;^[4] high, low, rising, and falling.