1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN
Bemba belongs to the Bemba Group (Guthrie 1942) of Bantu and is spoken in the Northern, Luapula, Copperbelt, and Northwestern Central provinces of Zambia, as well as in southeastern Zaire.
2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
Ohannessian and Kashoki (1978) offer a range from a narrow interpretation of the 1969 Zambian census of 18.6 percent (or 741,000) to a larger figure of 34.6 percent (or 1,328,000 speakers). On the basis of their own sample survey they suggest a percentage of 56.2 (or 2,339,000) first language speakers of Bemba. WTPR (1982) lists 1.5 million speakers. In contrast, Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) list 170,000 first language users, which appears out of line with the other figures.
3 USAGE
Bemba is a national (official) language in Zambia and is widely used as a lingua franca, especially in urban areas,in Copperbelt Province, and in radio broadcasts. At least one periodical, Mbila, is known to exist. Mann (personal communication, 1986), citing Zell, ed. (1984), notes: "African Books in Print/Livres africans disponible (3d edition), Mansell Publishing Ltd reports only 29 Bemba titles in print; this probably does not include some titles prepared for and circulated directly to schools but represents a depressing decline in availability."
1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN
Malagasy belongs to the West Indonesian branch of Hesperonesian and is spoken in Madagascar.
2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
There are more than eight million speakers of Malagasy.
3 USAGE
Malagasy is the national language of the Madagascar Republic. It is broadcast on Radio/Télévision Malagasy. In addition to many daily newspapers, the Ministère de l'Information puts out the bimonthly Bulletin de Madagascar, containing linguistic and other studies.
1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN
Ruanda and Rundi (properly, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi), of the Rwanda Rundi Group of Bantu (Guthrie D60), are the mutually intelligible national languages of Rwanda and Burundi, respectively. Ruanda is also spoken in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire; Rundi is also spoken in Uganda.
2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
WTPR (1982) notes 4.4 million Kinyarwanda speakers; Kimenyi (personal communication, 1983) notes 5 million first language speakers of Kinyarwanda in Burundi and 5 million first language speakers of Kirundi, with 18 million L1 and L2 speakers total for both.
3 DIALECT SURVEY
No specific dialect survey has come to our attention. Kimenyi (1983) states that the three major ethnic groups in both countries share the same language and culture.
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