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Shona
Spoken in:	Zimbabwe Mozambique Zambia Botswana
Region:	Africa
Total speakers:	7,000,000
Ranking:	58
Language family:	Niger-Congo  Atlantic-Congo   Volta-Congo    Benue-Congo     Bantoid      Southern       Narrow Bantu        Central         Shona
Official status
Official language in:	Zimbabwe
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sn
ISO 639-2:	sna
ISO 639-3:	sna
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Shona (or ChiShona) is native language 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.

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 are you going?) is pronounced: oo noh eh ndah koo pee

Most consonants are pronounced as in English with several notable exceptions: -dh is the same as "d" in English whereas "d" in Shona is much stronger -bh is the same as "b" in English whereas "b" in Shona is much stronger -sv - make an "ee" mouth but say "sh" -zv - (the voiced equivalent of sv) make an "ee" mouth, but say "zh" -ty - prounounced as if the "y" were a "ch" -dy - prounounced as if the "y" were a "g"

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

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.[1] The band Dispatch uses Shona in its song "Elias".

• 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)

Shona language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Ethnologue report on Shona
• The Shona Podcast - an Englishman and his Zimbabwean wife discuss the Shona language and culture
• The History of the Shona People.

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