By DR TONY MONDA
Language is defined as a system for the expression of thoughts, feelings and ideas by the use of spoken sounds or conventional written symbols. It is the faculty for the use of such systems which is a distinguishing characteristic of man as compared with other animals.
The Old Testaments testifies that the Tower of Babel, a tower presumptuously intended to reach from Earth to Heaven was frustrated when God confused the language of the tower builders –
(Genesis 11: 1-10). Rurwimi rwa mai – the mother tongue is thus the most effective means of communication for any people.
The Western assault on African traditional knowledge also applied to the replacement of local
languages with foreign languages. A contentious issue in African academic circles is the continued use of Colonial English to legitimise, express and articulate African knowledge, indigenous thoughts and ideas.
Perhaps the same question should be addressed to African-English novelists who over the years have sought legitimatisation of their creativity in a foreign tongue.
English, now spoken by more than one-fifth of the world’s population, is said to be the main mode of communication and an essential element of the new global culture. However, during my continued interaction with Shona sculptors, I often asked if they dreamt in English – all asserted emphatically to dream in Shona.
Given Shona art contains several meanings emanating from our indigenous culture, and an African reading of environment and ontology these multiple readings are often lost in English translation. In
other words their conceptualisation, rationalisation, visualisation, thought and articulation of stone sculpture is created in their mother tongue.
Still today highly intelligent and sophisticated indigenous people around the world are considered illiterate if they cannot read and/or write English, to the extent that Western statistics allude to one billion illiterate people – yet these people all read, write and speak in their mother tongues.
European Colonisation of Africa and other cultures and their near annihilation of indigenous languages also threatened our unique perspectives on life. Loss of traditional cultures through languages also meant the loss of knowledge.
Because the tradition of writing among Shona people did not exist prior to the arrival of the missionaries in the late 19th century; the initial colonial study of the local languages focused on developing a written system. The dialects on which the early missionaries concentrated on for this were Zezuru, Karanga, Ndau and Manyika.
Father Andrew Hartmann wrote the first books to be published on the Zezuru dialect, namely: “An Outline of a Grammar of the Mashona Language” (1893) and “An English – Mashona Dictionary (with an Appendix on Some Phrases” (1894). These works are marred by Hartmann’s confusion of the voiced and voiceless sounds, for example he uses ns for nz calling nzungu – nsunku.
His attempt at understanding the Shona language was followed by efforts from a linguist William
Elliot, who compiled a dictionary of “The Tebele and Shona Languages” three years later (1897). The book is believed to be the first to draw attention to the dialectal variations in Shona and to attempt to devise a common orthography for the groups of peoples.
In 1928, the Rhodesian authority asked the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures in London for assistance in standardizing Shona orthography. The Institute recommended Clement Doke (better known as C.M. Doke), a professor of Bantu languages at the University of Witwatersrand, in South Africa, to make proposals for the unification of the dialects into one standard written language, with one standard orthography.
Doke’s recommendations on the unification of the dialects (1931), included: “one alphabet should be used for all dialects using Roman letters and the eight special symbols; tone was not to be marked, with context being a sufficient indication of meaning; and there should be a compromise in terms of grammar between Karanga and Zezuru”
He proposed a Dictionary of Shona included as many words as possible from Karanga, Zezuru,
Manyika and Ndau. He concluded his report by stating that if the spirit of his proposed unification of the languages was maintained “ . . . a rich literary language will develop naturally and ultimately become an asset to the literature of the world . . . ”
It was on Doke’s orthography that Solomon Mutsvairo’s – “Feso” (1956), Bernard Chidzero’s – “Nzvenga-Mutsvairo’ (1957), and Patrick Chakaipa’s “Karikoga Gumiremiseve” (1958), the first literary works in Shona by indigenous speakers were published.
In 1931 Doke published his “Comparative Study in Shona Phonetics”, which remains the standard work on the sounds of Shona. In 1967 a further revision of Doke’s orthography of Shona language was published. “Hannan’s Dictionary of Shona” written by M. Hannan, was published in 1959.
Shona is the first language for approximately 82% of the indigenous population, mainly inhabiting central, northern, eastern and south-eastern Zimbabwe. The language is historically divided into six main recognised dialects, namely: Korekore, Karanga, Zezuru, Ndau, Kalanga and Manica.
The settlements of people speaking early forms of the Shona language are recorded in existence from circa 900AD in the South, and circa 1100 AD in the North of the country.
Ndebele, mostly spoken in Matabeleland, is the first language for 15% of the population whilst 3% of other indigenous groups speak a variety of indigenous minority languages. Officially recognized minority languages include Tonga, Kalanga, chiChhangana and Venda. In the South-east are other language families of the Nguni, Sotho, Venda, chiChhangana-Tsonga and Inhambane. Nguni comprises Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi.
There is also the Lala, Qwabe and Ndebele of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s Constitution of 2015 adopted Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Khoisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Sign language, as official languages. Although Sotho, Sena and Nyanja/Chewa are indigenous languages spoken in the neighbouring countries of Zambia, Malawi and South Africa they are also spoken in Zimbabwe.
Even “Speaking in tongues” has become widespread – de riguere, amongst religious evangelists In Zimbabwe. English is spoken by less than 1% of the country’s population.
Worldwide some 300 000 million people, roughly 5% of the global population, retain a strong identity as members of an indigenous culture, rooted in history and language and attached by myth and memory to a particular geo-physical space. Yet increasingly, their unique visions of life conceived in their languages are lost in a whirlwind of cultural and technological change.
Throughout history, over 10 000 spoken languages have existed. Many of the estimated 6 000 languages still spoken today, are not being taught to children.
These languages are effectively already defunct, and only 300 languages are spoken by more than 1 million people.
In another century, it is estimated that half of the languages spoken around the world today may be lost.
As languages disappear, cultures die, in so doing, we sacrifice the raw knowledge and intellectual achievements of indigenous people over millennia.
For this reason the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), declared the 21st February each year as “International Mother Language Day”.
Dr. Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. E-mail: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com
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