Lunda Language Letters & Words

Lunda (Chilunda in the language itself) is written with a Latin alphabet that includes ñ (n with tilde). Words like Chilunda, Mwinilunga, Nzambi or mukanda need nothing that is not on a standard keyboard or phone. The grid on this page shows basic Latin letters in capital and small form. Standard Zambian Lunda also uses ñ (n with tilde).

Several sounds are written with two letters, as in the other Bantu languages of the region: ch is the ch of church, sh the sh of shoe and ny the ny of canyon. The vowels a e i o u are said roughly as in Spanish or Italian. Lunda uses pitch to tell words apart, like most Bantu languages, but its standard orthography includes ñ (n with tilde), so it is not written using only unaccented letters.

The chi- at the start of Chilunda is a noun-class prefix meaning roughly "language or way of", the same prefix that gives Chikaonde, Chibemba and Chinyanja their names.

How to type ñ in Lunda

Standard Zambian Lunda writes the velar nasal /ŋ/ as ñ; ng represents /ŋɡ/, as in English finger. The apostrophes in Turner’s transcriptions of Ndembu ritual names such as Nkang’a and Wubwang’u are not the standard Zambian Lunda spelling for /ŋ/.

For Turner’s Ndembu transcriptions, straight ' and curly ’ (U+2019) are typographic variants. On Windows the curly one is Alt+0146 on the number pad, on a Mac Option+Shift+], and in HTML ’. Standard Zambian Lunda uses ñ for /ŋ/; linguistic works may use ŋ, while ng represents /ŋɡ/.

Where the Lunda language is spoken in Zambia

Lunda is the language of the Lunda people of Zambia’s North-Western Province 🇿🇲, above all in Mwinilunga and Ikelenge districts in the far north-west corner of the country, with more speakers in Kabompo and Zambezi districts. Unicode’s CLDR estimates about 400,000 speakers in Zambia; Lunda communities also live across the nearby borders in DR Congo 🇨🇩 and Angola 🇦🇴. The Zambezi River rises in this Lunda country before it flows on through Angola and back into Zambia.

Lunda is one of the seven Zambian languages used in early schooling and on national radio, together with Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga (Zambia), Lozi, Kaonde and Luvale, which all have their own collections here. Luvale and Kaonde are its neighbours within North-Western Province. The Zambia collection has the flag and the country’s emoji; the kwacha is written with a plain K.

Lunda tribe, chiefs and ceremonies

The Lunda of North-Western Zambia trace their chiefs to the old Lunda empire 👑 of the Mwaant Yav (Mwantiyamvwa), whose capital lay in what is now DR Congo. Senior Chief Kanongesha is one of their best-known rulers, and the yearly Lunda Lubanza traditional ceremony brings chiefs, dancers and drummers 🥁 together; it is a well-known Lunda event, and its songs are often shared as well.

Another branch of the same empire, the Lunda of Mwata Kazembe in Luapula Province, celebrates the Mutomboko ceremony at Mwansabombwe each July, remembering their crossing of the Luapula River. Most people there now speak Bemba, so Mutomboko posts usually mix Bemba and English with 👑🥁🇿🇲.

The Lunda of Mwinilunga are also the Ndembu of the anthropologist Victor Turner, whose books from his fieldwork there in the 1950s, such as The Forest of Symbols, made Ndembu ritual words famous worldwide. In them the mudyi or milk tree 🌳 stands for motherhood and the line of mothers, and Nzambi is the name for God.

Lunda Bible and Lunda words

The Lunda Bible, Old and New Testament, is a widely used text in the language, and it is read and sung from in churches across Mwinilunga and Ikelenge, so 📖 sits naturally beside Lunda text. Standard Lunda spelling includes ñ for the velar nasal; the apostrophe in Turner’s Ndembu transcriptions is not part of that standard spelling.