Hehe language

Hehe, also known by its native name Kihehe [kihehe], is a Bantu language that is spoken by the Hehe people of the Iringa region of Tanzania, lying south of the Great Ruaha River.^[3] In the 1970s, it was estimated that 190,000 people spoke Hehe.^[4] A more recent estimate puts the number at 1,200,000.^[5] There has been some Bible translation (British and Foreign Bible Society). Hehe may be mutually intelligible with Bena.^[3]

Hehe
Kihehe
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Hehe
Native speakers	1,200,000 (2016)[1]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Bena–Kinga (G60) Hehe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	heh
Glottolog	hehe1240
Guthrie code	G.62[2]
Linguasphere	99-AUS-ua

There are four main dialects: Kalenga (in the centre of the region, north-west and west of Iringa), Koisamba (in the Rift Valley to the north-west), Sungwa (east of Iringa round the Udzungwa Mountains), and Mufindi (south of Iringa). Among other differences, Sungwa has sounds /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ which are absent from other dialects.^[6]

Grammar

Hehe has 15 noun classes, marked with prefixes.^[7]

Hehe has a complex tense-aspect-mood system.^[8]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ	k
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ	ʄ	ɠ
	prenasal	ᵐb	ⁿd	ⁿdʑ	ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s			h
	voiced		(z)
	prenasal		ⁿz
Approximant		ʋ	l	j	w

Stops and affricates

• In the "stop/affricate" group, /t͡ʃ/ and /ⁿdʑ/ are described by Nyamahanga as affricates, the others being stops. /t͡ʃ/ is described as palato-alveolar, and /ⁿdʑ/ as palatal.^[9]

Nasalised consonants

• The five prenasalised consonants (/ᵐb/, /ⁿd/, /ⁿdʑ/, /ᵑɡ/, /ⁿz/) are voiced but not implosive. If they are preceded by a vowel, the vowel is usually (but not always) long.^[10]
• When an implosive consonant is preceded by a nasal prefix such as N- 'I, me', the prefix assimilates with the following consonant and changes it to the appropriate prenasalised consonant; e.g. ku-ɗeta 'to lie' when preceded by N- changes to ⁿdeta 'I'll lie'; ku-ɠeːⁿda 'to walk' changes to ᵑgeːⁿda 'I'll walk'.^[11]
• The combination of N- + a voiceless stop, however, does not result in a prenasalised consonant but a simple nasal, e.g. ku-pepa 'to smoke' becomes mepa 'I'll smoke'.^[12]
• The voiced labial-velar approximant /w/ changes to /ᵐbʷ/ when nasalised, e.g. ku-weːⁿda 'to like' > ᵐbʷeːⁿda 'I'll like'.^[13]
• The phoneme /ʋ/ is described by Nyamahanga as a labio-dental approximant. When nasalised it becomes ᵐb, e.g. ku-ʋalila 'to count' > ᵐbalila 'I'll count'.^[13] It cannot be followed by the vowel /o/ but changes to /w/ in this situation.^[14]
• The labio-dental fricative /f/ when preceded by nasal N either changes to /ʋ/ or remains as /f/; in either case the nasal is dropped, e.g. ku-fika 'to arrive' > ʋika or fika 'I'll arrive'.^[15]
• The lateral approximant /l/ changes to /ⁿd/ when prenasalised, e.g. ku-lima 'to till' > ⁿdima 'I'll till'.

Consonants with glide

• Most consonants (with the exception of /ʋ/, /j/, and /w/) can be labialised, that is, followed by a glide [w].^[16] Nyamahanga treats these labialised consonants as separate phonemes to the unlabialised consonants. Labialised consonants tend to be followed by a long vowel, except in the final syllable of a word, e.g. muhʷeːhʷe 'fear'.^[17]
• Most consonants (with the exception of /w/, /j/, /k/, /ɠ/, /ŋ/, /s/, /h/) can be followed by the glide vowel [j] ⟨y⟩ in the same way.^[18] In situations where /ki/ and /ɠi/ might be expected to form a glide vowel, they are transformed into the phonemes /t͡ʃ/ and /ʄ/: e.g. ki- (class 7 prefix) + uɠípa 'sharpen' becomes ʧ-uːɠípa 'it will sharpen', with compensatory lengthening of the vowel.^[19]

Other consonants

• [z] occurs in the language, but is mainly heard in Swahili loanwords.^[20]

Vowels

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

In addition to these ten vowels, Kihehe also has a syllabic /m̩/ (sometimes pronounced [mu] by some speakers). This can occur initially, medially, or finally, and can bear a tone, e.g. ḿtalám̩ 's/he is a tough person' (four syllables, with a high tone on the first and third). Unlike the nasal in the nasalised consonants, this syllabic /m̩/ does not assimilate to the following consonant or cause a following implosive consonant to become plosive.^[21]

Syllable structure

Apart from /m̩/, and the fact that words may begin with a vowel, every syllable in Kihehe consists of the form C(G)V, where C = consonant, V = vowel (long or short), and G = glide (/w/ or /j/). Two different vowels normally cannot follow each other. When a prefix such as tu- 'we' is added to a verb starting with a vowel, the vowels are combined into one syllable; e.g. tu + íᵐba becomes tʷíːᵐba 'we sing', with lengthening of the /i/ to compensate for the shortening of the /u/.^[22] An exception is the prefix ĕː (rising tone), which is added to 3rd person singular verbs without assimilation of the vowels, e.g. ĕː-alyá 's/he would have eaten'.^[23]

Tones

Like most Bantu languages, Kihehe is a tone language. Tones can have both a lexical function (distinguishing one word from another) and a grammatical function (distinguishing different forms of the same verb).^[24]

There are two levels of tones, high (H) and low (L). A non-final syllable with a short vowel can be either H or L. If a syllable with a long vowel has a tone, it can have either a rising tone (LH) or a falling one (HL). If a final syllable has a tone, it is always a falling tone.

As in other Bantu languages, the H and L tones are asymmetrical.^[24] When two H tones come together, the second H tone is lost and becomes L (see Meeussen's rule). A noun with three syllables usually has only one H tone, but nouns with more than three syllables can have more than one H tone.^[25]