This volume aims to provide insight into the complexity of the contemporary linguistic context of Zimbabwe and offers a variety of disciplinary perspectives to understand, and bring attention to, the multifaceted nature of language matters.
Collen Sabao & Esther Mavengano argue as editors for the need to consider language issues as central to sociocultural and economic development. For language to be an effective tool for development, they suggest that working with communities to develop a detailed understanding of language structure, language use patterns, and language ideologies is required.
Language contact, change, and innovation are a focus of a number of chapters. Sabao & Oiva Sikwaya Nauyoma present an analysis of English loans in Shona, discussing how English loan words undergo the elimination of consonant clusters, and resyllabification at various levels. Other contributions demonstrate that semantic shifts and lexical innovations in Shona are being led by young speakers (Andrew Mutingwende, Sabao) and through artists in the Zimdancehall music genre (Mickson Mazuruse & Benjamin Mudzanire).
The consequences of colonialism on the contemporary linguistic situation in Zimbabwe is a prevailing theme. Mavengano (chapter 16) notes that dominant monolingual ideologies in Zimbabwe maintain a linguistic hegemony which contributes to the marginalisation of the majority of languages in the country. In discussing the prevalence of native speakerism in Zimbabwe and South Africa, Mavengano (chapter 13) argues for a more linguistically inclusive approach to education based on individuals’ everyday linguistic realities. Wilson Zivave demonstrates how colonial policies introduced a linguistic hierarchy in Zimbabwe which privileged primarily English, and also Shona and Ndebele as dominant Zimbabwean languages, leading to the marginalisation of other Zimbabwean languages. In arguing for the creation of a harmonised orthography for Shona-Nyai varieties, Mazuruse (chapter 3) argues that missionary linguists introduced arbitrary boundaries which led Shona language communities—speaking similar varieties—to be split and categorised as speakers of distinct named languages.
The volume highlights prevailing ideologies of inferiority amongst speakers of Zimbabwean languages. Isaac Mhute provides an analysis of language policy changes. He notes that despite Zimbabwe introducing a 2013 policy elevating sixteen languages to official language status (the most of any country in the world), little changed in practice and many view indigenous languages as lacking value. Similarly, Raphel Nhongo suggests that a perceived lack of value in isiNdebele is a hurdle in the intellectualisation of the language for use in higher education. Steyn Madlome illustrates that not all indigenous languages are viewed equally, highlighting that a language shift amongst Xitsonga speakers to ChiShona is partly motivated by negative attitudes towards Xitsonga and positive attitudes towards ChiShona as a language of wider communication.
The volume provides a snapshot into current research, and research priorities, of scholars working on language issues in Zimbabwe, and working from universities in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. It brings attention to the need to bring a multilingual perspective to our study of language and will be of interest to scholars working across subdisciplines who focus on language issues in multilingual contexts.
