Shona , or chiShona, is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and
southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona
language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore.
Shona is a principal language of Zimbabwe, along with Ndebele and the official business
language, English.
Shona is spoken by a large percentage of the people in Zimbabwe.
Other countries that host Shona language speakers are Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique.
Speakers Shona is the Bantu language most widely spoken
as a native language.
According to Ethnologue, Shona, comprising the Karanga, Zezuru, and Korekore dialects,
is spoken by about 10.8 million people.
Manyika and Ndau dialects of Shona, listed separately by Ethnologue, and are spoken by
1,025,000 and 2,380,000 people, respectively.
The total figure of Shona speakers is then about 14.2 million people.
Zulu is the second most widely spoken Bantu language with 10.3 million speakers according
to Ethnologue.
Instruction Shona is a written standard language with
an orthography and grammar that was codified during the early 20th century and fixed in
the 1950s.
The first novel in Shona, Solomon Mutswairo's Feso, was published in 1957.
Shona is taught in the schools but is not the general medium of instruction in other
subjects.
It has a literature and is described through monolingual and bilingual dictionaries.
Modern Shona is based on the dialect spoken by the Karanga people of Masvingo Province,
the region around Great Zimbabwe, and Zezuru people of central and northern Zimbabwe.
However, all Shona dialects are officially considered to be of equal significance and
are taught in local schools.
Related vernaculars Shona is a member of the large family of Bantu
languages.
In Guthrie's zonal classification of Bantu languages, zone S10 designates a dialect continuum
of closely related varieties, including Shona proper, Manyika, Nambya, and Ndau, spoken
in Zimbabwe and central Mozambique; Tawara and Tewe, found in Mozambique; and Ikalanga
of Botswana and Western Zimbabwe.
Origins Shona speakers most likely moved into present
day Zimbabwe from the Mapungubwe and K2 communities in Limpopo, South Africa, before the influx
of European, primarily British, settlers.
A common misconception is that the speakers of the Karanga dialect were absorbed into
the Ndebele culture and language turning them into Kalanga.
This misconception is a direct result of the political bias in the national curriculum
framework of Zimbabwe.
The Kalanga language is widely spoken in Botswana where the Ndebele were never present.
The Kalanga language is thought to have been the language used by the Mapungubweans.
If this is accurate it follows that the Karanga dialect of Shona is a derivative of Kalanga.
Karanga is closer to Kalanga than the rest of the aforementioned dialects.
Karanga and Kalanga are both closer to Venda than the other Shona dialects.
Dialects Shona is used to refer to a standardised language
based on the central dialects of the Shona region.
Shona languages form a dialect continuum from the Kalahari desert in the west to the Indian
ocean in the east and the Limpopo river in the south and the Zambezi in the north.
While the languages are related, evolution and separateness over the past 1000 years
has meant that mutual intelligibility is not always possible without a period of acculturation.
Therefore Central Shona speakers have a difficult time understanding Kalanga speakers even though
lexical sharing can be over 80% with some western Karanga dialects.
In the same manner eastern dialects spoken by the Indian ocean are also very divergent.
There are many dialect differences in Shona, but a standardized dialect is recognized.
According to information from Ethnologue: Hwesa dialect
S14 Karanga dialect.
Spoken in southern Zimbabwe, near Masvingo.
Subdialects: Duma, Jena, Mhari, Ngova, Venda, Nyubi, Govera.
S12 Zezuru dialect.
Spoken in Mashonaland and central Zimbabwe, near Harare.
The standard language.
Subdialects: Shawasha, Gova, Mbire, Tsunga, Kachikwakwa, Harava, Nohwe, Njanja, Nobvu,
Kwazvimba.
S11 Korekore dialect.
Spoken in northern Zimbabwe, near Mvurwi.
Subdialects: Budya, Gova, Tande, Tavara, Nyongwe, Pfunde, Shan Gwe.
Languages with partial intelligibility with Shona, of which the speakers are considered
to be ethnically Shona, are the S15 Ndau language, spoken in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and the
S13 Manyika language, spoken in eastern Zimbabwe, near Mutare.
Ndau literacy material has been introduced into primary schools.
Maho recognizes Korekore, Zezuru, Manyika, Karanga, and Ndau as distinct languages within
the Shona cluster, with Kalanga being more divergent.
Phonology and alphabet All syllables in Shona end in a vowel.
Consonants belong to the next syllable.
For example, mangwanani is syllabified as ma.ngwa.na.ni; "Zimbabwe" is zi.mba.bwe.
Shona's five vowels are pronounced as in Spanish: [a, e, i, o, u].
Each vowel is pronounced separately even if they fall in succession.
For example, "Uno enda kupi?" is pronounced [u.no.e.nda.ku.pi].
Modern alphabet The letters of the alphabet are,
The trigraph mbw is pronounced . Whistled sibilants
Shona and other languages of Southern and Eastern Africa include whistling sounds, unlike
most other languages where whistling signals a speech disorder.
Shona's whistled sibilants are the fricatives "sv" and "zv" and the affricates "tsv" and
"dzv".
Whistled sibilants stirred interest among the Western public and media in 2006, due
to questions about how to pronounce the name of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement
for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe.
The BBC Pronunciation Unit recommended the pronunciation "chang-girr-ayi".
Old alphabet From 1931 to 1955, Unified Shona was written
with an alphabet developed by the linguist Professor Clement Martyn Doke.
This included the following letters: ɓ,
ɗ, ŋ,
ȿ, ʋ,
ɀ.
In 1955, these were replaced by letters or digraphs from the basic Latin alphabet.
For example, today ⟨sv⟩ is used for ⟨ȿ⟩ and ⟨zv⟩ is used for ⟨ɀ⟩.
References
Bibliography Biehler, E. A Shona dictionary with an outline
Shona grammar.
The Jesuit Fathers.
Brauner, Sigmund A grammatical sketch of Shona : including historical notes.
Köln: Rüdiger Koppe.
Carter, Hazel Kuverenga Chishóna: an introductory Shona reader with grammatical sketch.
London: SOAS.
Doke, Clement M. Report on the unification of the Shona dialects.
Stephen Austin Sons.
Mutasa, David The problems of standardizing spoken dialects: the Shona experience, Language
Matters, 27, 79 Lafon, Michel, Le shona et les shonas du Zimbabwe,
Harmattan éd., Paris External links
"The History of the Shona People".
Pan African Localization report on Shona Example of Shona, Lyrikline.org page on poet
Chirikure Chirikure, with audio and translations into English.
Basic Shona language course USA Foreign Service Institute
Shona Dictionary Shona Dictionary