<h2>Lozi interpreters and translators</h2>
            CIT offers Lozi interpreters and translators with legal, medical and specialty experience, including criminal and civil matters, employee meetings, engineering, patent cases, labor disputes, immigration and more.

            Although based in Los Angeles, CIT offers comprehensive Lozi language services including interpretation, translation and transcription, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, worldwide. Our interpreters and translators are native speakers who have been screened, certified, have provided credentials, field tested, and kept up to date with developments in both English and the Lozi language through means such as lectures, conferences, and travel. CIT’s Lozi language interpreters and translators possess in-depth knowledge of the Lozi language, as well as of the culture and history of the Lozi people, allowing them to provide informed and complete interpretation and translation.
            <h2>The Lozi Language</h2>
            The Lozi language is spoken by approximately 730,000 people worldwide. Of those people, about 612,000 of them live in Zambia. Lozi is also known as Kololo, Kolololo, Rotse, Rozi, Rutse, Silozi or Tovzi. It is spoken primarily in the Southern province, the Linvingstone area and the Western province of Barotseland. Lozi is also spoken in Botswana and Zimbabwe along with Zambia. Lozi is used in education, home, church and community. It is taught in both primary and secondary schools and is used for media such as newspapers and the radio and is recognized for administrative and educational reasons. The Lozi language falls under the Niger-Congo language family and further, under the classification of Bantu languages. Its script is written in Latin, introduced by missionaries, and has a Zambian Braille system as well.

            The history of the Lozi language indicates that Lozi came about as a compilation based on two languages: Luyana and Kololo. It is believed that the Luyana people had traveled south from both the kingdoms of Luba and Lunda in the Katanga region of the Congo River basin around the late 1600s or early 1700s. Because of this influence from the Luba and Lunda kingdoms, their language was heavily influenced and quite similar to theirs. After much travel, they settled in the upper Zambezi floodplains. Today, this area is known as Zambia. They established their own kingdom, known as Barotseland and named this area the Barotse Floodplain, also known as Bulozi.

            On the other hand, the Kololo people were Sotho people who used to live in an area known today as Lesotho. The Kololo fled from Shaka Zulu in the beginning of the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Having learned war tactics from the Zulus, the Kololo people conquered the Luyana people, thus ruling them and forced their laws and language upon the Luyana. About 30 years after in 1864, the Luyana rebelled and ran out of the Kololo. In those thirty years, the native Luyana language had minimally been used. A new language, called Lozi or Silozi, was not the main language.

            The Lozi people are very skilled in water, soil and grass conditions, making them excellent in agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing. The Lozi people consider themselves a separate people from Zambia and have their own flag.

            The Lozi people have a hierarchy. The royalty is at the top and it goes all the way down to the slaves and serfs. Regarding the religion of the Lozi, the Nyambe cult is the most cardinal, indicating that all prayers are directed towards Nywambe. In the cult of Nyambe, the ‘priest’ is the oldest member of a family, whether it is a man or a woman, as there are no delegated priests in this cult. Nyambe had been worshipped only during special occasions and times of crises such as harvest time, war and drought. The second type of religion with the Lozi is the Royal Grave cult, where prayers are directed to spirits of the ancestor kings against Nyambe, which is the Supreme Being for the Lozi. It is believed, through royal descent, that the Royals came from Nyambe through the ancestress. Through royal descent, a person can be eligible for kingship.