Survival
Shona is a term that was introduced in the 1920’s and was originally used to refer to the Karanga by people who didn’t know any better. The term evolved over time and was used to refer to the various Bantu groups who had settled on the Zimbabwe Plateau and whose languages belonged to the Shona group of languages.
Standardized Shona, based on the Karanga and Zezuru dialects only came into existence in the 1950s. Taught in schools throughout Zimbabwe Standardized Shona while preserving the shona language has managed to cause the death of major and minor dialects. Those spoken by handfuls of people like the Tonga or Kalanga are quickly disappearing. Even the major dialects of Karanga and Zezuru are not what they were, say twenty years ago, parts of speech and the various subtle nuances that made them unique are dying with each passing generation. Worse still Standardized Shona is being diluted by English.
A people’s cultural identity is deeply rooted in their language and its use. Arabs speak their Arabic with pride, and have even adapted the format of the printed word to their own needs with books, newspapers and even computer keyboards made to suit. The French have a reputation for the zeal with which they preserve the way their language is spoken, right down to the accent. And in the US of A the very minimum requirement for having a satisfactory sojourn there is that you must at the very least ‘speak American!’
We, however, appear to have lost ourselves. Our primary language of communication is English, for business, at home, in school and even sometimes in art, we insist that to be heard one must speak a language that doesn’t belong to us. Academics and pseudo-intellectuals have devoted long hours to research and debate over how colonialism is to blame for our loss of language, passing the blame to another. Yes it happened, and in many ways our minds are still colonised. But that doesn’t mean that we are helpless. At some point, we have to take responsibility as a group and as individuals. More than that we have to own our identities. The histories of our various peoples, our languages and even cultures are being lost to time. The relevance of what is passed down from parent to child through oral tradition is lost to a generation that has assimilated foreign cultures and values. The education given to that generation so that they will find their place in a globalized world comes at the cost of their language and culture. The world as seen on television appears to be moving towards a sort of cultural uniformity. How will we live with ourselves without that which makes us, by our own tradition people?