Language Raising, Empowerment and Development: The Case of Shona Language at Great Zimbabwe University

Abstract

Many academic papers have been written by African scholars calling for the greater use of African languages in all facets of communication in Africa. Politicians in many African countries have called for a greater role for African languages in developmental programmes in Africa. This research attempts to move away from the usual moaning that has characterised many conferences on African linguistics where a lot of time is spent on lambasting the lack of political will in implementing language policies that promote African languages. This study argues that the best way to promote indigenous languages is not to spend too much time “talking about promotion of indigenous languages” but to provide tangible products that enable the speakers of these languages to transmit traditional as well as modern knowledge in these languages. Such products include dictionaries, glossaries, electronic corpora and other reference works. This paper looks at one of these developments that have significantly contributed to the promotion and development of indigenous languages in Zimbabwe. It discusses the efforts by one institution that has played a major role in the promotion of indigenous languages in Zimbabwe, that is, the Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. The main focus is on the challenges faced by this institution and the strategies being employed in the efforts to develop terminologies that equip the indigenous languages with the abstractive powers that are needed for people to be able to teach all Shona courses at tertiary level in the medium of Shona. The article argues that the use of these languages at tertiary level will result in them playing a much bigger role at national level.