Ciyawo-English Dictionary Project

Ciyawo-English Dictionary Project Based in the Mangochi District of Malawi, the Ciyawo-English Dictionary Project is an ongoing effort

The Ciyawo English Dictionary Project (CEDP) is a small dictionary project that aims to construct a bilingual learner dictionary in Ciyawo and English. Our main audience are final year Yawo primary and first year high school students, though we believe that the dictionary will also be a great help to cross-cultural workers who need to learn Ciyawo in order to communicate with people in their heart

language. We believe that this dictionary, once complete, will be of great assistance to Yawo children who require English for entrance into secondary education, yet who are severely disadvantaged by a dearth of published material in their language. The Yawo number more than 2 million people and currently live in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. Unfortunately, they are one of the least educated groups in Malawi. One of the reasons for their low level of education is because they are disadvantaged when entering school as they don’t speak either of the languages which dominate the education system in Malawi, namely Chichewa and English. It is therefore our desire to help bridge this gap, in a small way, by providing a limited vocabulary dictionary in Ciyawo-English that will help Yawo children become familiar with the most important and frequently used words in these languages.

17/05/2025

We have just updated the sound files in our two dictionary apps – the English-Ciyawo Learner’s Dictionary and the Ciyawo-English Learner’s Dictionary – for both Android and Apple smartphones. You can now hear a native speaker of English and Ciyawo pronounce more than 3,000 headwords in each dictionary. These are great tools that will help you grow your ability to understand and speak English and Ciyawo. Please update your Apps in Google Play or on the Apple App Store to benefit from these latest changes.

The Ciyawo-English Dictionary App and the English-Ciyawo Dictionary App on Android and iPhones now have audio files adde...
05/02/2025

The Ciyawo-English Dictionary App and the English-Ciyawo Dictionary App on Android and iPhones now have audio files added to them so that learners of English and Ciyawo can hear the headwords articulated by native speakers of those languages. This takes these two learners' dictionaries to the next level in helping learners grow their language capacity. If you have these Apps make sure that you update them to take advantage of the latest features. Best of all these updated apps are free of charge!

https://apps.apple.com/au/app/ciyawo-english-dictionary/id6471535892

https://apps.apple.com/au/app/english-ciyawo-dictionary/id6471535621

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gia.cedp.ciyawo.english.learners.dictionary

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=english-ciyawo&c=apps

05/02/2025

Recently we held workshops in 30 primary and secondary schools in Namwera, Katuli and ce Bwana Nyambi of the Mangochi District of Malawi introducing our Dictionary and Dictionary App to Yawo speaking students and teachers.

Last week we audio recorded native speakers speaking the English and Ciyawo headwords from our two dictionaries so that ...
07/09/2023

Last week we audio recorded native speakers speaking the English and Ciyawo headwords from our two dictionaries so that we can add sound links to our two smartphone dictionary apps which will then enable people to hear the headwords as a native speaker would pronounce them.

Last week the Ciyawo-English Dictionary Project team worked on developing learning outcomes and seminar outlines for tea...
07/09/2023

Last week the Ciyawo-English Dictionary Project team worked on developing learning outcomes and seminar outlines for teaching upper primary and lower secondary students and teachers about how to use a dictionary and how to use the English-Ciyawo smartphone dictionary applications that we have developed. We will teach these highly interactive seminars in around 60 schools in the Mangochi District of Malawi in 2024.

Address

P. O. Box 138
Mangochi
N/A

Telephone

+61467573695

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The Ciyawo English Dictionary Project (CEDP) is a small dictionary project that aims to construct a bilingual learner dictionary in Ciyawo and English. Our main audience are final year Yawo primary and first year high school students, though we believe that the dictionary will also be a great help to cross-cultural workers who need to learn Ciyawo in order to communicate with people in their heart language. We believe that this dictionary, once complete, will be of great assistance to Yawo children who require English for entrance into secondary education, yet who are severely disadvantaged by a dearth of published material in their language. The Yawo number more than 2.5 million people and currently live in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. In Malawi alone there are more than 1.7 million first language Ciyawo speakers. Unfortunately, the Yawo are one of the least educated groups in Malawi. One of the reasons for their low level of education is because they are disadvantaged when entering school as they don’t speak either of the languages which dominate the education system in Malawi, namely Chichewa and English. It is therefore our desire to help bridge this gap, in a small way, by providing a limited vocabulary dictionary in English-Ciyawo that will help Yawo children become familiar with the most important and frequently used words in the English language. The English-Ciyawo Dictionary was published in 2018 and is available locally in Malawi as well as on Amazon.com.

We are currently constructing a dictionary for non-Ciyawo speakers. This dictionary explains the 3,000 most important and frequently used Ciyawo words in English.