Talk:Shona language

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1 Possible copyvio
2 Official Language?
3 Shona people?
4 Number of sounds

[edit] Possible copyvio

I pulled out the following paragraphs. They seem to be verbatim copied from here, constituting a possible copyright violation.

The archaeological ruins known as "Great Zimbabwe" have been radiocarbon dated to approximately 600 A.D. It is believed that the ancestors of modern day Shona built Great Zimbabwe and hundreds of other stone walled sites in Zimbabwe. It was not until the late 19th century that the peoples speaking several mutually intelligible languages were united under the Shona name.

There are five main language clusters: Korekore, Zezuru, Manyika, Ndau, and Karanga. The last of these groups was largely absorbed by the Ndebele when they moved into western Zimbabwe in the 1830s; some of their descendants are identified today as Kalanga.

I've also added a small bibliography. Let's rewrite this! — mark ✎ 00:28, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Official Language?

Shona is widely spoken, but I've checked some sources such as the CIA Factbook and it states that English is the only official language. Should that be changed? --Bash 00:04, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

There are three official languages, namely, Shona, Ndebele and English. Further to this, English has the special role of the "language of record", i.e., all official records and record archives of any nature are in English. This special role given to English is particularly strange to me given our (we, the Shona) desire to see longevity for our language. Kudakwashe

[edit] Shona people?

Is there an ethnic group called Shona? If not, why is this page disambiguated from "Shona"?

Peter ^Isotalo July 3, 2005 22:38 (UTC)

Yes there is. The Shona people speak the Shona language. — mark ✎ 3 July 2005 22:45 (UTC)

There certainly is an ethnic group bearing the name Shona. I'm one of them. The Shona estimated population is of the order 8-10 million. The majority (about 90%) are in Zimbabwe. The country name Zimbabwe is in Shona and so is the city name Harare - kudakwashe