Chewa

Chewa ( /ˈtʃeɪwə/; endonym: Chichewa), or Nyanja (Chinyanja), is a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and a recognised minority in Eastern Zambia and Tete province of Mozambique. The prefix chi- in front of Chewa means "in the manner of" (the Chewa people). In Malawi, the name was officially changed from Chinyanja to Chichewa in 1968 at the insistence of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, and is still the name most commonly used in Malawi today. In Zambia, Nyanja is still the preferred name, and Town Nyanja (Lusaka Nyanja) is rather divergent, under the influence of other languages in Lusaka.

Chewa belongs to the same language group (Guthrie Zone N) as Tumbuka, Sena and Nsenga. Throughout the history of Malawi, only Chewa and Tumbuka were official languages of Malawi used by government officials and in school curricula, along with English. However, the Tumbuka language suffered a lot during the rule of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, as it lost its status as one of Malawi's official languages in 1968 as a result of the president's "one nation, one language" policy. As a result, Tumbuka was removed from the school curriculum, the national radio, and the print media. With the advent of multi-party democracy in 1994, Tumbuka programmes were started again on the radio.