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 to other animals.
Biblically, it was testified in the Old Testaments 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). Rurimi rwamai – the mother tongue is thus the most effective means of communication for any one people.
Zimbabwean academic, Dr Arthur Takawira Makanda re-discovers the importance of using our mother tongue, which he advocates in his latest book, Indigenous Language Creation: Struggles over Policy Implementation in Post-colonial Zimbabwe, released in February 2016.
He petitions in well-articulated discourse for the use of the mother tongue as a means of communication in academic, administration, business and mass-media channels.
His book was published by the African Institute for Culture, Peace and Tolerance Studies (2013).
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 to legitimise their creativity in a foreign tongue.
English, now spoken by more than one-fifth of the world, is said to be the main mode of communication and an essential element of the new global culture. However, during my research and continued interaction with indigenous sculptors, I often asked if they dreamt in English – to which all of them proclaimed they dreamt in Shona.
In other words, their conceptualisation, rationalisation, visualisation, thought and articulation of stone sculpture is created in their mother tongue.
Highly intelligent and sophisticated indigenous people around the world are considered illiterate if they cannot read and/or write English, to the extent Western statistics allude to one billion illiterate people – yet these people speak 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 means loss of knowledge. For instance, many language cultures have insights into nature that still defy modern science today.
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 writing system.
The dialects on which the most significant work was done by these early missionaries were Zezuru, Karanga, Ndau and Manyika.
For Zezuru, the first books to be published on the Zezuru dialect, An Outline of a Grammar of the Mashona Language (1893) and An English – Mashona Dictionary (with an Appendix on some Phrases (1894), were written by Father Andrew Hartmann.
These works are marred by Hartmann’s confusion of the voiced and voiceless sounds.
For example, he uses ns for nz calling nzungu – nsunku.
This attempt at understanding Shona was followed by efforts from a linguist, William Elliot, who compiled a dictionary of The Tebele and Shona Languages three years later (1897).
This 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 group of peoples.
In 1928, the Rhodesian authority asked the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures in London for assistance in standardising Shona orthography.
The Institute recommended that one, Clement Doke (aka C.M. Doke), Professor of Bantu Languages at the University of Witwatersrand, in South Africa, make proposals for the unification of the Shona dialects into one standard written language, with one standard orthography.
The recommendations in Doke’s report on the unification of the Shona dialects (1931), included the following: “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”
Doke proposed that a dictionary of Shona be prepared to include as many words as possible from Karanga, Zezuru, Manyika and Ndau.
He concluded his report by saying 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 the first literary works in Shona by indigenous speakers – Solomon Mutsvairo’s Feso (1956), Bernard Chidzero’s Nzvenga Mutsvairo (1957) and Patrick Chakaipa’s Karikoga Gumiremiseve (1958) were published.
In 1931 Doke published his Comparative Study in Shona Phonetics, which remains the standard work on the sounds of Shona to date.
In 1967, a further revision of Doke’s orthography of Shona language was published. The Standard Shona Dictionary written by M. Hannan, was published in 1959.
Shona is spoken by indigenous people inhabiting central, northern, eastern and south-eastern Zimbabwe.
It is the first language for approximately 82 percent of the population, the language is, however, divided into historically 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 to exist from circa 900AD in the south and circa 1100AD in the north of the country, Zimbabwe.
Ndebele is the first language for 15 percent of the population whilst three percent of other indigenous groups speak a variety of indigenous minority languages, with English being originally spoken by less than one percent of the population.
Officially recognised minority languages include Tonga, Kalanga, chiChangana and Venda.
In the South-east of Zimbabwe are other language families of the Nguni, Sotho, Venda, chiChangana-Tsonga and Inhambane.
Nguni comprises Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi among the Zulu dialects spoken in Zimbabwe.
There is also the Lala, Qwabe and Ndebele of Zimbabwe.
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.
The new 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe adopted Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Khoisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, including Sign language, as Zimbabwe’s official languages.
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, lecturer, musician, art critic, practising artist and Corporate Image Consultant. He is also a specialist Art Consultant, Post-Colonial Scholar, Zimbabwean Socio-Economic analyst and researcher.
For views and comments, email: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com