The language is also spoken by the Iwe, Toka and Leya people among others, as well as many bilingual Zambians and Zimbabweans.

Valley Tonga is mostly spoken in the Zambezi valley and southern areas of the Batonga while Plateau Tonga is spoken more around Monze District and the northern areas of the Batonga.

[3] Tonga developed as a spoken language and was not put into written form until missionaries arrived in the area in the 19th century.

Although there are a growing number of publications in the language, it is not completely standardized, and speakers of the same dialect may have different spellings for the same words once put into written text.

Others, such as Pulleyblank, analyse the same data purely in terms of tonal rules, without the need to introduce accents.