Common · Knowledge

Hehe language

Bantu 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. In the 1970s, it was estimated that 190,000 people spoke Hehe. A more recent estimate puts the number at 1,200,000.

There has been some Bible translation (British and Foreign Bible Society). Hehe may be mutually intelligible with Bena. 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. Hehe has 15 noun classes, marked with prefixes. Hehe has a complex tense-aspect-mood system. In addition to these ten vowels, Kihehe also has a syllabic /m̩/ (sometimes pronounced [mu] by some speakers).

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