The Gwamba language belongs to the South-Eastern Branch of the Bántu family of languages, according to Dr. Bleek's system of classification. But this language was never known, under its true name, until the Swiss missionaries settled among the Ma-Gwamba people and studied their language. In his Comparative Grammar Dr. Bleek calls it by the name of Tekeza; and, complaining of the scanty materials which he could get, he says (§ 32): “Tekeza dialects are known to us only through short vocabularies.”