Chinyanja language

Chewa
Nyanja
Chichewa, Chinyanja
Native to	Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe
Ethnicity	Chewa
Native speakers	12 million (2007)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Bennue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Nyasa Chewa
Writing system	Latin (Chewa alphabet) Chewa Braille
Official status
Official language in	Malawi  Zimbabwe
Recognised minority language in	Zambia  Mozambique
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ny
ISO 639-2	nya
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	nyan1308
Guthrie code	N.30 (N.31, N.121)
Linguasphere	99-AUS-xaa – xag

Chewa, also known as Nyanja, is a language of the Bantu language family. The noun class prefix chi- is used for languages, so the language is usually called Chichewa and Chinyanja (spelled Cinyanja in Zambia, and Cinianja in Mozambique). In Malawi, the name was officially changed from Chinyanja to Chichewa in 1968 at the insistence of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda (himself of the Chewa tribe), and this is still the name most commonly used in Malawi today. In Zambia, Chewa is spoken by other people like the Ngoni and the Kunda, so a more neutral name, Chinyanja '(language) of the lake' (referring to Lake Malawi), is used instead of Chichewa.

Chewa belongs to the same language group (Guthrie Zone N) as Tumbuka, Sena, and Nsenga.

Chewa is the most widely known language of Malawi, spoken mostly in the Central and Southern Regions of that country. "It is also one of the seven official African languages of Zambia, where it is spoken mostly in the Eastern Province. It is also spoken in Mozambique, especially in the provinces of Tete and Niassa, as well as in Zimbabwe where, according to some estimates, it ranks as the third-most widely used local language, after Shona and Northern Ndebele." It was one of the 55 languages featured on the Voyager spacecraft.

The Chewa were a branch of the Maravi people who lived in the Eastern Province of Zambia and in northern Mozambique as far south as the River Zambezi from the 16th century or earlier.