Shona language

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Shona (or ChiShona) is native language of the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify those Bantu-language speaking peoples in Southern Africa who speak one of the Shona language dialects, namely Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore. The word "Shona" is derived from the Ndebele word itshonalanga ("where the sun set"). Shona is an official language of Zimbabwe, along with Ndebele and English. Numbering about 6,225,000 (SIL 1989), Shona speakers comprise more than 80% of Zimbabwe's population. Shona is also spoken by a substantial number of residents of Mozambique. Other countries that host Shona language speakers are Zambia and Botswana. The total number of Shona speakers is at least 7,000,000 (UBS 1990).

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. It 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 (chiefly Shona - English). 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.

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.

Shona speakers most likely moved into present day Zimbabwe during the great Bantu expansion.

Shona has five vowels: a, e, i, o, u and has a rich consonant inventory, whose peculiarity probably features with "whistling sounds" transcribed as "zv" (possibly one of the most frequent; e.g. zvakanaka, very well), "dzv", "sv" and "tsv" . It is a tonal language, though tone is not represented in spelling.

Pronunciation

Shona's five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are pronounced as in Italian: ah, eh, ee, oh, oo. Each vowel is pronounced separately even if they fall in succession. For example, "Unoenda kupi?" (Where do you go?) is pronounced: oo noh eh ndah koo pee

Most consonants are pronounced as in English with several notable exceptions:

-d is pronounced by release of pressure when the tongue is pulled away from the roof of the mouth; the English "d" sound is spelled -dh
-b is pronounced by implosion (reducing the pressure in the mouth by pressing the lips together); the English "b" (pronounced by increasing the pressure) is spelled -bh
-sv means make an "ee" mouth but say "sh"
-zv is the voiced equivalent of sv, pronounced by making an "ee" mouth, but saying "zh"
-ty is prounounced as if the "y" were a "ch"
-dy is prounounced as if the "y" were a "g"

Orthography

All syllables in Shona end in vowels. Consonants always belong to the next syllable. "Mangwanani" which means "morning" would be separated like this: ma/ngwa/na/ni

All verbs end in -a.

  kuda - to like, love, want

  kuenda - to go

  kusvika - to arrive

  kudya - to eat

  kutamba - to dance or play

  kurara - to sleep (kuvata)

  kudzoka - to come back

  kuseka - to laugh

  kuchema - to cry

Other

Mangwanani, the Shona word for "Good Morning" is also the title of a song written to raise money for Comic Relief by a collaboration band called "Z-trolleee". The band, based in Leicester, United Kingdom, released the single for Comic Relief Week 2007. The website link is here.

The band Dispatch uses Shona in its song "Elias".

Bibliography

Biehler, E. (1950) A Shona dictionary with an outline Shona grammar (revised edition). The Jesuit Fathers.
Brauner, Sigmund (1995) A grammatical sketch of Shona : including historical notes. Köln: Rüdiger Koppe.
Carter, Hazel (1986) Kuverenga Chishóna : an introductory Shona reader with grammatical sketch (2nd edition). London: SOAS.
Doke, C. M. (1931) Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects. Stephen Austin Sons.
Mutasa, David (1996) 'The Problems of Standardizing Spoken Dialects: The Shona Experience', Language Matters, 27, 79&ndash

Lafon, Michel (1995), Le shona et les shonas du Zimbabwe, Harmattan éd., Paris (in French)

External links

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Last updated on Sunday March 02, 2008 at 16:11:12 PST (GMT -0800)
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