Chokwe language

Chokwe
Ucôkwe (Wuchokwe)
Native toAngola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia
EthnicityChokwe people
Native speakers
(2.5 million cited 1990–2018)[1]
Official status
Official language in
 Angola (national language)
Regulated byInstituto de Línguas Nacionais
Language codes
ISO 639-3cjk
Glottologchok1245
K.11[2]
Chokwe
PersonKacôkwe
PeopleTucôkwe
LanguageUcôkwe (Wuchokwe)

Chokwe (also known as Batshokwe, Ciokwe, Kioko, Kiokwe, Quioca, Quioco, Shioko, Tschiokloe or Tshokwe[3]) is a Bantu language spoken by the Chokwe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia. It is recognised as a national language of Angola, where half a million people were estimated to have spoken it in 1991; another half a million speakers lived in the Congo in 1990, and some 20,000 in Zambia in 2010.[1] It is used as a lingua franca in eastern Angola.

  1. ^ a b Chokwe at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  3. ^ Nurse, Derek; Philippson, Gérard; Bostoen, Koen; Van de Velde, Mark (2019). The Bantu languages (Second ed.). London. ISBN 9781317628682.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)