World Language Map

Where is Makwe spoken?

Makwe is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in Mozambique and Tanzania. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Makwe is spoken

Makwe is spoken in 2 countries: Mozambique and Tanzania.

Country
Mozambique
Tanzania

Makwe has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Makwe?

Wikidata gives about 120,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2000). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Threatened. Glottolog lists it as threatened: it is still spoken by all generations, but there are signs that the number of speakers is falling.

Where Makwe sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Makwe as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Atlantic-Congo
  2. Volta-Congo
  3. Benue-Congo
  4. Bantoid
  5. Southern Bantoid
  6. Narrow Bantu
  7. East Bantu
  8. Rufiji-Ruvuma
  9. Ruvuma
  10. Makondic
  11. Makwe

Related languages

Other languages in the Makondic group:

More about Makwe

Codes: ISO 639-3 ymk, Glottolog makw1236. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Makwe

Where is Makwe spoken?

Makwe is spoken in Mozambique and Tanzania. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Makwe?

Wikidata gives about 120,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2000). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Makwe in?

Glottolog places Makwe in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern Bantoid, Narrow Bantu, East Bantu, Rufiji-Ruvuma, Ruvuma and Makondic.

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