{{Short description|Bemba variety of Zambia}} {{Infobox language |name=Town Bemba |states=Zambia |region =[[Copperbelt]] |familycolor=Creole |speakers=unknown, but growing;<br>2–3 million as L2 |date=2009 |ref=<ref name="HPC"/> |family=[[Bemba language|Bemba]]-based |iso3=none |glotto=town1238 |glottorefname=Town Bemba |guthrie=M.40A }}
'''Town Bemba''' is an innovative variety of the [[Bemba language]] spoken among migrant populations in central [[Zambia]]. It developed in the mines and mining towns, where it replaced the earlier, and foreign, [[Fanagalo]].
It has been described as a creole,<ref name=HPC>[[Kees Versteegh]], 2009, "Non-Indo-European Pidgins and Creoles", in Kouwenberg & Singler, eds., ''The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies''</ref> but this is dubious, since Town Bemba never went through a [[pidgin]] phase and its phonology and grammar differ only slightly from standard Bemba.<ref>Andrew Gray & Phallen Bwalya, 2015. ''Bemba: a learner's guide to Zambia's largest language''</ref> Unlike in [[Chichewa|Nyanja]], whose urban form needs to be treated as a separate language for literary purposes,{{Clarify|reason=|date=April 2019}} literacy materials in Bemba such as those produced by iSchool.zm can generally be used by both urban and traditional speakers.{{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
[[Category:Bemba]]