Bemba Alphabet

In everyday spelling, Bemba uses these basic Latin single letters, in this order: A B C D E F G I J K L M N O P S T U W Y. Native words have no h, q, r, v, x or z, so they are missing from the alphabet. D is the one letter Unicode's CLDR leaves out of its list, but standard spelling uses it after n, where an l turns into d: ukulanda (to speak), ndi bwino (I am fine).

Three sounds have common multicharacter spellings: sh as in Muli shani? (How are you?), ny as in canyon, and ng’, the ng of English singer. C is always the ch of church, which is why the official spelling is Icibemba while older books and English texts often write Chibemba. G is always hard, as in go.

The five vowels a e i o u are pronounced roughly as in Spanish or Italian. Bemba is a tonal language, but standard spelling does not mark tone, so a Bemba text never needs an accented letter.

Why the apostrophe in ng’ matters

Bemba has two different sounds that would both look like ng. Plain ng is n + g, as in English finger: ingoma, drum. ng’ with an apostrophe is the single sound of singer, with no g after it: ing’ombe, cow, and ing’wena, crocodile. Leave the apostrophe out and a reader has to guess which word you mean.

Any apostrophe works. A computer keyboard types the straight one ', while phones and word processors usually turn it into the curly ’ (U+2019); both are read the same way. On Windows the curly one is Alt+0146 on the number pad, on a Mac Option+Shift+], and in HTML ’. The Ministry of Education’s 1977 orthography prescribes ŋ for this sound (iŋombe), while newspapers and government documents commonly write it as ng’.

Bemba nouns are grouped into classes, usually marked by prefixes, which is why words come in families: umuntu a person, abantu people; Umubemba a Bemba person, Ababemba the Bemba people, Icibemba their language. Searching or naming the language, both Bemba and Icibemba are right.

Bemba greetings and common phrases

Bemba has polite, respectful forms of greeting. Mwapoleni is hello, and adding mukwai, a respectful word for sir or madam, makes it warmer: Mwapoleni mukwai. In the morning people say Mwashibukeni, literally "have you woken up?". Muli shani? asks how you are; the answer is Ndi bwino, I am fine, or simply Bwino.

Natotela is thank you and Natotela sana thank you very much. A visitor is met with Mwaiseni, welcome. Leaving, you say Shalenipo to those who stay, and they answer Endeni bwino, go well. Nalikutemwa means I love you, and Lesa amupale, God bless you, is a familiar blessing. All of them use only plain letters, so they paste anywhere.

Where Bemba is spoken

Bemba is the largest language of Zambia 🇿🇲: Unicode's CLDR estimates about 7 million speakers there. It is the home language of the north, in Northern, Muchinga and Luapula provinces around Kasama, Mpika and Mansa, and the everyday language of the Copperbelt mining towns such as Kitwe and Ndola, where people from all over Zambia meet in Bemba. Across the border it is also spoken in the south-east of DR Congo 🇨🇩, around Lubumbashi.

It is one of the seven regional languages Zambia uses in early schooling and on national radio, beside Nyanja, Tonga (Zambia), Lozi, Kaonde, Lunda and Luvale, all of which have their own collections here. Bemba is a Bantu language, a cousin of Swahili and Luba-Katanga; Bemba tradition says the people came east from the Luba lands of Kola in today's Congo. The Zambia collection has the flag, the kwacha and the country's emoji.