# Mushunguli (Chizigula): the Bantu language of the Juba valley

> Mushunguli (Somali Chizigula): where it is spoken, its link to Zigua in Tanzania, its sounds, and its speakers in the Juba valley and the United States.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/society/mushunguli-language/
Last checked: 2026-11-13
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## Who speaks it and where

Mushunguli, also spelled Mushungulu and called Chizigula or Zigua, is spoken by Somali Bantu people in [Jamaame](/en/regions/jamaame/), Kismaayo, Mogadishu and the [Juba River](/en/regions/jubba-river/) valley. Wikipedia, citing Ethnologue, gives about 34,000 speakers ([Zigula language, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigula_language)).

The Italian linguist Marcello Lamberti recorded it in 1981 in the Jamaame district along the [Juba](/en/economy/farming-and-harvests/) ([Landinfo 2011, p. 10](http://www.landinfo.no/asset/1800/1/1800_1.pdf)). He described the speakers as descendants of people taken as slaves, among other places from [Tanzania](/en/diaspora/tanzania/), 200 to 300 years before his survey. He found their language closest to Shambala of Tanzania.

## Link to Zigua in Tanzania

The language shares strong word and grammar links with the speech of the Zigua people of Tanzania ([Zigula language, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigula_language)). A 2002 report by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants on the Somali Bantu noted that many Bantu in Somalia descend from people captured in that part of East Africa during the 1800s ([Refugee Reports, November 2002, archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20091111104732/http://www.refugees.org/data/refugee_reports/archives/2002/nov.pdf)). Ethnologue notes that the Mushunguli are known in Tanzania as Wazegua ([Zigula language, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigula_language)).

## Speaking Somali and Maay too

Lamberti found in the 1980s that Mushunguli men had much contact with their Somali neighbours and spoke good Somali, while women had less contact and knew less Somali ([Landinfo 2011, p. 10](http://www.landinfo.no/asset/1800/1/1800_1.pdf)). Many Mushunguli men use [Maay](/en/society/maay-language/) and Somali as working languages ([Zigula language, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigula_language)).

## Sounds and writing

There is no official or traditional way of writing Mushunguli; spellings from related Bantu languages are used. Vowel length does not change meaning, but long sounds go with falling tones, as in chîga ("leg"). The tone system is close to that of Tanzanian Zigua ([Zigula language, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigula_language)).

Because thousands of Somali Bantu were resettled in the United States from 2003, much recent research has been done with speakers there ([Somali Bantu resettlement](/en/diaspora/somali-bantu-resettlement/)). Studies include Erin MacSaveny's work on verb tone ([MacSaveny 2009, Verbal tone in Chizigula](https://www.diu.edu/documents/OPAL/No-5-MacSaveny-Verbal-Tone-in-Chizigula.pdf)), Katherine Hout and Eric Bakovic on sound rules (2014), and Michal Temkin Martinez and Haley Boone on nasal sounds (2016) ([Zigula language, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigula_language)). A Somali Chizigula dictionary is published online on the Webonary platform ([Webonary, Somali Chizigula](https://www.webonary.org/somali-chizigula/)).

## Read more

- [Minority communities](/en/society/minority-communities/)
- [Swahili in Somalia](/en/society/swahili-in-somalia/)
- [Somali dialects](/en/society/somali-dialects/)

---
I want to help with this: email hello@calankii.com. Fix this page: email hello@calankii.com with the page link and your source.