Fangwezi

Welcome to the language of the Fangwezi language. This languages is very closely related to the Fangwa language but is often considered a dialect by the Fangwa language although the Fangwezi themselves see their language as separate and point to the differences between the two languages. Fangwezi has less influence from Afrihili then Fangwa and the vocabulary has more in common with Entesi. The Fangwezi is also head final like Entesi but unlike Fangwa, Fangwezi also has the distinction between the inclusive and the exclusive first person plural. The counting system works like Entesi but the other aspects of Fangwezi like the verb conjugation and the noun class system are similar to Fangwa. There is some mutual intelligibility between the two languages although the Fangwa report a better understanding of Fangwezi then the other way around. Linguists consider the languages as closely related but the Fangwezi deny the close relationship because they don't like the claim of the Fangwa that Fangwezi is a mere odialect of Fangwa.

The Fangwezi territory is located to the south of Fangwa-land and the two territories share a border and the Fangwa would like to include the Fangwezi to their country because only then they would have the biggest territory, bigger than their rivals the Entesi and they would then possess a lot of cattle because the Fangwezi are expert sheperds posessing lots of sheep, goats and cows and making lots of dairy product from these animals.

But the Fangwezi are very proud and stubborn people and they insist that their language is a branch on its own although there is little evidence to support this idea. The purists among the Fangwezi proposed to call the language "Kadziba" from the old word 'kadzi' (= work/labour) and 'bantu' (= people) to stress that the Fangwezi are hard working people but the name isn't popular. Nowadays most linguists agree that are essentially the same language but the Fangwezi is like a rebelious twin has decided to differentiate itself as much as possible from the other twin.

Numerals
The numbers in Fangwezi ressemble the numerals in Entesi a lot:

1) moje 2) bile 3) tsato 4) niye 5) tsano 6) tsandato 7) sombo 8) none 9) henda 10) gome

11) moje nqwa gome (lit : 1+10) etc. 20)  bile gome [lit: 2 times ten] 21) moje nqwa biligome etc

The upper tens are made by attatching the basic numeral to the word for ten so tsatogome = 30 (3 times 10) etc;

counting between the upper tens is done by consistently lower number first then put 'nqwa ' (=and) and the higher number, so 31 = moje nqwa tsatogome. 100 = zane, 1000 = nkotu, 1000.000 = foku

Personal Pronouns
The personal pronoun system is a little bit more complex than Fangwa but not much.

I = ndi, you (sg) = o, he/she (human) = a, we (incl) = to, we (excl) = ti, you (plur) = nqo, they (human) = ba

In addition to these pronouns Fangwezi also distinguished between the 3rd person animate (non-human) pronoun  i  and its  plural   bi  as well as the inanimate object prounoun  e  and its  plural form  be . The distinction is somewhat arbitrary: plants are considered animate while fruits and vegetable are inanimate, bodyparts are animate, eggs are inanimate, certain fluids are animate (water, milk, blood, rain, alcohol) while others are inanimate (fruit juices, sweat, urine)

Verbal system
Verbs like in all Bantu languages are a separate class in the noun class system; in Fangwezi they recieve the prefix ko so  ko bona = to see. Verbs are conjugated for 3 tenses:  ya  (present),  ri  (past),  la  (future tense) and 1 aspect:  ma  (perfect aspect from komada = to finish). All of these particles are inserted between the personal pronoun and the verb. E.g. ndi ya bona = I see; ndi ri bona = I saw; ndi la bona = I will see; ndi ma bona = I have seen