Shona Language Research Articles

Ritual Space in the Zimbabwe Culture

The social use of space is a worldwide phenomenon that can clarify the structures of various ancient societies. One of these, the Zimbabwe culture, embraces state-level societies dating to the Iron Age of Southern Africa (AD 1200–1820). In contrast to the preceding chiefdom-level societies, ritual space in the Zimbabwe culture centered on sacred leadership. Among other things, what had been rain-control hills in the wild bush became the locus for stone-walled palaces inside the capitals. In this sense, Zimbabwe people ‘domesticated’ the concept of God. Among other palace functions, the front provided the leader with ritual seclusion, while the back was reserved for national rituals, such as rainmaking. One year after death, royal leaders (both men and women) were buried in the palace or in rock shelters on special hills. Such hilltop burials began in the 13th century at Mapungubwe. According to 16th-century documents, both these grave sites and palaces had the same name: dzimbahwe in the Shona language (the residence, court, and grave of a leader). Inside the settlement, royal and commoner youths together attended a pre-marital school that inculcated societal norms. Evidence for such a school first appears in the Mapungubwe landscape. Overall, sacred leadership provided the ideological foundation for institutionalized social classes. Different settlement organizations made these social classes manifest: the Central Cattle Pattern for commoners and the elite Zimbabwe Pattern for royalty.

The triglossic relationship of Zezuru, Karanga and other Shona dialects in the speech and writing of Shona as a language in Zimbabwean primary schools

The research has endeavoured to highlight the problems of the triglossic relationship of Zezuru, Karanga and other Shona dialects in the speech and writing of Shona language in Zimbabwean schools. It focused on how Zezuru as a high variety Shona dialect has adversely affected the performance of learners writing 'O' level Shona examinations in Secondary school. The current Shona orthography lacks some sounds from other dialects and this makes it incapable of handling adoptives from other dialects and basing Shona writing on one dialect kills the other dialects and in turn the Shona language. The current Shona orthography based on two major dialects, that is Zezuru and Karanga, does not distinguish all the significant sounds that are distinguished by Ndau, Korekore, Manyika and Karanga and hence the Shona alphabet does not recognize and represent other speech forms of other Shona dialects. This linguistic situation coupled with orthographic problems causes low passes in Shona at 'O' level. Hence, one proposes, language awareness campaigns, use of Shona in the teaching of practical criticism and grammar and that the government gives value to other Shona dialects.

Unsung, ignored or underrated? A look at Solomon Skuza's songs in the context of contemporary Zimbabwe's socio-political and economic environment

All good art transcends the limitations of time. In other words, good art is timeless and not mediated by the shifty circumstances of the period in which it is produced. This research sets out to analyze the timelessness, visionary and futuristic nature of Solomon Skuza’s selected songs. The research is spurred by the realization that long after his death, an analysis of his music album “Love and Scandal” shows the relevance that his words still have on the problematic nature of Zimbabwe’s socio-political and economic life. As one of the founding fathers of the ‘irabi’ (the equivalence of ‘sungura’ in the Shona language in Zimbabwe) and later Reggae music in Matebeleland both before and after independence, the research concludes by arguing that Solomon Skuza as an artist was a victim of political circumstances that prevailed in the 1980s and was therefore ignored and marginalized musically. It takes the view that the Gukurahundi disturbances contributed to this marginalization by the only broadcasting station in the country then, a broadcasting station driven by the political imperatives of a hegemonic and monolithic ZANU-PF party that called the shots after independence to date. This research argues that at a thematic level Solomon Skuza’s music had and still has a lot to contribute to the wrong turn that the post independence Zimbabwean ruling oligarchy took. Key words: Corruption, ESAP, ZANU PF, Scandal, Sandura Commission, Raggae, Sleaze, Gukurahundi, ZAPU, Ndebele, Shona.

The Language Question in the Teaching and Examination of ‘A’ Level Shona: A Case of Masvingo District in Zimbabwe

This paper investigates the perceptions of Zimbabwean teachers, examiners and pupils towards the shift from English to Shona in the teaching and examination of Advanced level (‘A’ level) Shona Paper 2 in a context where English, a foreign language, has always mediated the teaching and examining of this paper. The paper also attempts to discover the attendant impact that this linguistic shift has had on candidates’ performance in the examinations. Research findings indicate that although the official policy advocates using Shona language to teach Shona, practice in some schools indicates a laissez-faire implementation of the policy where individual teachers continued to rely on English or, in some cases, code-switched from Shona to English during classroom interactions. Most teachers castigated the existing situation where there were more Shona Grammar textbooks written in English compared to Shona, a situation that demanded translation competence from teachers whose own college and university training had been done in English. However, the introduction of Shona in the teaching of ‘A’ level Shona Paper 2 has been widely welcomed as a development which has helped Zimbabwe retain her linguistic autonomy. The majority of respondents argued that it is intellectually cramping for learners to be expected to ‘learn’ their own language in a ‘borrowed’ language as this negates their performance in the national examinations. The paradox of this research, however, is that although the introduction of Shona has engendered a marked quantitative increase in the number of candidates passing ZIMSEC examinations, the quality of examination passes has been affected.

The Interface of Language and History: The Case of Shona in Zimbabwe

The article investigates the interface between language and history. It uses the Shona language and history as a case study. It endeavors to answer the question as to whether we get language in history or vice versa, that is, history in language. The article argues that the two are inseparably intertwined so much that it is virtually impossible to separate them. It posits the view that history is the prime mover of changes in any language through the addition of new lexemes to delineate new items, perceptions and attitudes ushered into a community by historical occurrences while language acts as a repository of these historical events. Language is therefore a source of history as aspects of the historical past can be deciphered from it. The article further argues that in addition to being a source of the history of its speakers, language is a source of its own history as well that could be derived from it through comparative reconstruction.

Ortographic and Morphological Problems in Headword Identification, Selection and Presentation in ALLEX

This article discusses aspects of an on-going lexical computing project at the University of Zimbabwe, known as ALLEX, the acronym for African Languages Lexical Project. ALLEX is a collaborative, multi-faceted, long-term, computer-aided lexicography project that is intended to produce a series of dictionaries, glossaries and other language reference works in the indigenous languages of Zimbabwe, starting with the first ever monolingual Shona dictionary, which is already at an advanced stage of preparation, and which will also be the first corpus-based dictionary in Zimbabwe. The article confines itself to problems relating to word formation processes in Shona, specifically with reference to the lexicographers' need to ensure consistency in (i) identifying word forms as headwords in the running texts of the corpus, (ii) selecting from among these headwords to decide which ones to enter in the dictionary, and (iii) presenting the entries in the standard orthography. First, an outline is given of the project's background, objectives, priorities, guidelines and work in progress. The article then focuses on specific problems encountered, and discusses these, and some of the solutions, in the light of advances in computer lexicography, with particular reference to concordancing. It will become evident that the problems encountered by the ALLEX Team have to do with the unlimited capacity of the Shona language's basic and derivational word formation processes, which it shares with the other languages in the Bantu family. Therefore, it will be suggested that these problems, and the solutions that are being worked out, have much wider implications that go beyond Shona and Zimbabwe.

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

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.

The Effects of Shona Language Change on Monolingual Lexicography: The Need for a Revised Alphabet

ABSTRACT: In this article, the phenomenon of Shona language change, its effects on lexicography and the need for a revised alphabet are discussed. Because of the defective Shona alphabet, lexicographers at the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI) encountered problems in handling some words that were potential headwords in dictionaries they were compiling under the ALLEX project. The current Shona alphabet is unable to realize quite a number of sounds and morphemes in lexical items in everyday use by the native Shona speakers, because they are alien loanwords. The article was prompted by the challenges encountered during the compilation of Duramazwi reMimhanzi (Shona Musical Terms Dictionary). It shows how language change accounts for the problem of headword selection and how modifying the current alphabet can enhance monolingual Shona lexicographical work vis-a-vis the development of the Shona language. It therefore stresses the need for a revised alphabet so as to solve orthographical problems during dictionary compilation. PFUPISO YECHINYORWA: Matambudziko Anosanganwa Nawo Mukugadzira Maduramazwi eMutauro Mumwe chete neKuda Kwekushanduka Kwemutauro weChiShona: Panofanirwa Kuva neManyorerwo eChiShona Matsva. Muchinyorwa chino vanyori vanoongorora kushanduka kuri kuita mutauro weChiShona nekufamba kuri kuita nguva nematambudziko anosanganikwa nawo nekuda kweshanduko iyi zvikurusei mukugadzira maduramazwi ari mururimi rweChiShona chete. Vanyori vanoonesawo pfungwa yekuti panodiwa manyorerwo matsva. Nyanzvi dzinogadzira maduramazwi paAfrican Languages Research Institute (ALRI) dzinosangana namadambudziko esarudzo yamazwi padzinenge dzichisarudza mazwi adzinenge dzichida kuisa mumaduramazwi adzinogadzira pachirongwa chokugadzira maduramazwi chinonzi ALLEX. Dambudziko resarudzo yemazwi rinowanikwa nekuda kwechimiro chebumbiro remanyorerwo eChiShona risingatenderi mamwe mavara ari mune imwe mitauro asiri muChiShona. Bumbiro iri parizvino haritenderi mamwe mavara, mibatanidzwa yamavara namamwe mazwi anowanikwa mumutauro wemazuva ano waVaShona anobva mune mimwe mitauro. Chinyorwa chino chakatokonywa namadambudziko akasanganiwa nawo nevanyori vebepa rino pavakange vachigadzira Duramazwi reMimhanzi. Chinyorwa chino chakanangana nokuburitsa kushanduka kuri kuita ChiShona, uye matambudziko anosanganwa nawo pakusarudza mazwi anopinda muduramazwi uye kuonesa zvakare kuti kugadzirisa bumbiro ramanyorerwo kunogona kurerutsa basa ravagadziri vamaduramazwi. Izvi zvinoita zvakare kuti mutauro weChiShona uvandutswe. Pamusoro pezvose izvi, chinyorwa chino chinoda kutaridza kuti sei zvakakosha kuita chimbichimbi kugadzirisa chimiro chebumbiro remanyorerwe pakuzama kurerusa matambudziko anosanganwa nawo nevagadziri vemaduramazwi eChiShona. Mazwi Akakosha: KUSANDUKA KWEMUTAURO, ALLEX, MAZWI, SEGIMENDI, SUPURASEGIMENDI, ARIFABETI, ZVAMADURAMAZWI, ADHAPUTESHENI, KUKWERETA, ADHOPUSHENI, ATIKURESHENI, MITINHIRO

Media and development: The politics of framing gender struggles in the postcolonial zimbabwean shona films

Summary To frame gender struggles is to set an agenda on what people should think about it in respect of the contradictory roles that men and women play in society and culture. In this article, three films in the Shona language – Mwanasikana (1995), Kapfupi (2009) and Nhasi tave nehama (1993) have been sampled out to explore gender struggles inherent in the Zimbabwean society. The premise of this article is rooted in the ideological doubleness of the word framing as both restrictive as well as an instrument for liberation. Framing gender in the discourses of these three films calls attention to perceiving gender struggles in certain ways and in the process manifesting as far as possible the buried narratives that are otherwise obscured in manipulated forms of representing life. It is the duty of film critics to retrieve these silenced and “other” readings because of their potential to suggest to the audiences some alternative opinions and reactions. I advance in this article that while a frame can impose what should be thought about, it does not necessarily dictate how audiences interpret its text(s). This dialectical relation of framing implied in the restriction-liberating dimension of a frame, that emerges as it were from the struggle of verbal and visual images inside a frame's boundaries, actually can predispose audiences to want to delve for alternative images of how men and women are depicted in the Shona film.

The Effects of Shona Language Change on Monolingual Lexicography: The Need for a Revised Alphabet

In this article, the phenomenon of Shona language change, its effects on lexicography and the need for a revised alphabet are discussed. Because of the defective Shona alphabet, lexicographers at the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI) encountered problems in handling some words that were potential headwords in dictionaries they were compiling under the ALLEX project. The current Shona alphabet is unable to realize quite a number of sounds and morphemes in lexical items in everyday use by the native Shona speakers, because they are alien loanwords. The article was prompted by the challenges encountered during the compilation of Duramazwi reMimhanzi (Shona Musical Terms Dictionary). It shows how language change accounts for the problem of headword selection and how modifying the current alphabet can enhance monolingual Shona lexicographical work vis-à-vis the development of the Shona language. It therefore stresses the need for a revised alphabet so as to solve orthographical problems during dictionary compilation. Keywords: Language Change, Allex, Lexicon, Segment, Suprasegment, Alphabet, Lexicography, Assimilation, Borrowing, Adoption, Articulation, Sounds

The Impact of Lexicographical Work on Language Use: The Case of Shona Monolingual Dictionaries in Zimbabwe*

This article examines the impact of current lexicographical work in Zimbabwe on some sectors of Shona language use, namely education, media, medicine and local government. It looks specifically at Shona monolingual lexicographical projects completed by the African Lan-guages Research Institute (ALRI), successor to the African Languages Lexical Project (ALLEX). It analyses how users of Shona in these particular sectors are responding to the different lexico-graphical products published by ALRI. The article maintains that Shona monolingual lexicography has resulted in language raising and awareness. It has also led to term creation and has contributed towards standardisation of the language. Shona has furthermore gained the abstractive power it needs to explain its own and other concepts. All these have caused diglossia leakage from Low (L) Shona to High (H) Shona in some areas of Shona language usage. The overall effect is that Shona is now used in some formal sectors such as the above-mentioned ones which previously were the preserve of English in Zimbabwe. Keywords: MONOLINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHY, GENERAL DICTIONARIES, SPECIALISED DICTIONARIES, STANDARDISATION, LANGUAGE RAISING, LANGUAGE AWARENESS, LANGUAGE USE, SLCA, ALLEX, ALRI

A survey of the language situation in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACTIs there a Zimbabwean variety of English? If so, who speaks it? Although Zimbabwe is a multilingual speech community, the Shona language, which is composed of dialects and sub-dialects, enjoys numerical dominance because it is spoken by the majority of the Zimbabweans. On the other hand, English, the official language, enjoys status dominance and it occupies a special position in the lives of many Zimbabweans. There is dispute, however, whether English in Zimbabwe is an interlanguage, and its speakers have adopted the native variety as a model, or whether it is better to observe that there are many varieties of English in Zimbabwe which are pragmatically identifiable as Zimbabwean, and that the vast majority of Zimbabweans appear to speak an English which reflects the linguistic characteristics of Shona.

Linguistic innovation during a national crisis: An analysis of selected Shona metaphors created during the Zimbabwe crisis

This article discusses the nature of metaphors that were created by Shona speakers in order to capture various aspects of the Zimbabwean political and socio-economic crisis. The data for this study were collected from August to December of 2008 and their analysis is mainly couched within the Cognitive Grammar theory, which looks at metaphor as a conceptual and linguistic phenomenon that involves a mapping relation between two domains, namely, the source domain and the target domain. In this regard, this study adopts the cognitive view that sees metaphor as one of the basic human strategies for dealing with our environment in which we make use of concrete phenomena such as moto lit: ‘fire’, kudhakwa lit: ‘drunkenness’ and kurova lit: ‘beating’, to conceptualize more abstract concepts such as the pain, difficulties and confusion that people experience during a crisis. In addition, this article recommends similar studies on other local languages such as Ndebele, Nambya and Kalanga, to find out whether the same processes that are responsible for linguistic change in the Shona language are also evident in these languages since they are spoken by a considerable percentage of the Zimbabwean populace.

Solomon Mutswairo and the songs that we sang

ABSTRACT A prominent and first black generation author of Zimbabwe, the late Solomon Mutswairo's opus is punctuated with some record-making national cultural cum literary projects. For instance there is Feso (1957), the first novel in the Shona language and the lyrics to Simudzai Mureza weZimbabwe, (Raise the Zimbabwean Flag) the anthem of the Republic of Zimbabwe and some scholarly works. As the late Mutswairo stature reaches legendary levels in Zimbabwe, one notes with concern the unconscious and unfortunate sidelining, and sometimes omission, of his “smallest” book called Tagutapadare: Poems for children (1982) by Zimbabwean literary critics and those who set out to explore the Mutswairo world view. The blurb to the 2000 version of the book describes the contents as ‘gamesongs.’ In this article I will attempt, with the help of hindsight, to connect my own childhood with these gamesongs or children's songs. I will also refer to songs collected by A.C. Hodza elsewhere, as well as those that I remember from my own childhood. In the process, I hope to demonstrate that the African children's song, if closely considered, is no little song at all. As the child sings these songs and play the subsequent games at various points in its life, it engages with its world in various fundamental ways. The child learns to recognise itself as a stakeholder in the natural and social environment through naming and even interrogating its world. For me, the available convenience ensues from the fact that I also come from the same Shona childhood background from which Mutswairo the author recalled and registered the songs in the booklet. That factor alone has necessitated the analytic cum reminisce approach used in this article. Although in Tagutapadare, Mutswairo is largely a collector and recorder of Shona childhood gamesongs, a project similar to A.C. Hodza's Mitambo Yavasikana navakomana Pasichigare (1984) Mutswairo is solely responsible for the way in which he has recalled and arranged these pieces. That despite this form of mediation the songs remain identifiable with their origins is a clear sign that Mutswairo is very faithful to folklore.

“A Place of Trouble”: The Political Ecology of HIV/AIDS in Chipinge, Zimbabwe

For acknowledgements, please see Note 1 . Chipingamupinyi, in the Shona language, means “a place of troubles,” which in the past described problems with witchcraft in Chipinge, Zimbabwe; however, t...

History and the ideology of narrative in Charles Mungoshi's Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva (1975)

It is the intention of this essay to analyze one of Mungoshi's novels in the Shona language: Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva (How Time Passes). It has been acclaimed as stylistically Mungoshi's most innovative creative work. Critics Emmanuel Chiwome (1996) and Vitalis Nyawaranda (2005) have each drawn attention to the use of the technique of ‘stream of consciousness’ in the novel. Other than merely asserting that Mungoshi borrowed this technique from the Irish writer James Joyce (1916), no critics attempt to vigorously analyze this technique in relation to the history that made its use possible in a colonial context in Rhodesia. Furthermore, no single study has attempted to understand the ‘content’ of this technique in the overall ideology of narrative in Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva. This essay argues that questions of history, ideology and narrativity are central in giving Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva a fractured form that ruptures the modes of representation of classical realism typical of pre- and post-independence Zimbabwean fiction. The essay suggests that the ‘content’ of ‘stream of consciousness’ in the novel is manifest in its capacity to authorize a multiplicity of meanings from ideologically contrasting, conflicting and sometimes decentred perspectives all promoting alternative narrative voices.

Red Dirt Paths

began to walk me across town to my hotel, warning,“Tani, this street is not safe. I know a guy who robs people here.” And I remember, as usual when I walked with my students or black friends in the city, a policeman (seeing a white American and a notorious street kid) came up and asked Bernard for I.D., and then asked me,“Do you know this person?” “Yes.” “How well do you know him?” “I am his teacher.” “Oh. Well, be careful.” Bernard didn’t complain. He joked, afterward, saying in his local Shona language,“Man do not bother me, this woman belongs to me.” The feminist in me bristled at such sexism yet took solace in the idea that Bernard was different from many of the Shona men in that he, at least, understood enough about American women to bother to laugh at his “joke.” After being in the bush where men offered to pay seven mombes [cows] for me as a second wife, Bernard was refreshing.

Metaphors in Shona: A Cognitive Approach

This article discusses the pervasiveness of metaphors in ezvii/dm/ Shona language. It argues that metaphorical expressions are not mere ivonis, but they are part of a much bigger way of conceptualizi ng tilings. Examples me given to shoiv how everyday metaphorical expressions are based on a much larger set of conceptual metaphors. The article takes a cognitive view ivhich sees metaphors as one of the basic human strategies for dealing with our environment in that we use existing physical concepts in our environment to conceptualize more abstract concepts. This kind of metaphorical extension from one domain to another plays a very important role in the extension of the lexicon.

Lexicographical Developments in the Shona Language as Reflected in the Making of the Duramazwi Guru ReChiShona (DGS)

Tin's article traces lexicogiaphical developments in Shona, one of the major languages of Zimbabwe, with particular focus on corpus building and the role the corpus has played in Shona lexicography in the past hundred or so years and recent developments as reflected in the making o/Duramazwi Guru ReChiShona by the African Languages Research Institute (ALR1) team of the University of Zimbabwe. Background Lexicography in Shona is not a new discipline. It dates as far back as the 1850s when missionaries began constructing orthographies for Shona speakers in the areas in which the missionaries were stationed. These early orthographies were to be used to construct vocabularies that would enable the translation of religious texts from English into Shona. From then until the 1990s, several glossaries and dictionaries were produced. As Fortune (1979,1992) correctly observed, Shona dictionaries compiled in this period were all bilingual in nature. Their primary purpose was to provide a written basis for the lexical items of the language as a whole (Fortune 1992:18) and were targeted at foreign mission workers, settlers, miners, and prospectors in order to aid them in their interactions and contacts with the local people. Most of these early publications were essentially grammar texts that merely described the nature of the language to non-Shona speakers. According to Fortune, these early publications revealed both the compilers' very limited knowledge of the language and of the techniques of dictionary making (1992: 17). The fact that compilers of these early publications were describing a language that had not been written before, often worked in isolation in their remote mission stations and relied mainly on their own Bible translations for headwords or lexical items to use in the

The Shona writing system: An analysis of its problems and possible solutions

This article critically examines the Shona writing system, starting with an evaluation of the early efforts by the missionaries, Doke and the Shona Language Committee to establish a common writing system. The article seeks to identify weaknesses in Shona orthography and suggests ways of improving it. It concludes that the present writing system needs to be revised in order for it to be a tool for national development and that language experts need to work to improve the current alphabet, word division, and spelling so that the Shona language becomes a national asset in the new millennium.