Also visit the Shona 2001 Intensive Summer Language Program webpage
1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN
Shona belongs to the Shona Group of Bantu (Guthrie S10). It is spoken by various groups (including Karanga, Makorekore, Manyika, Ndau, and Zezuru), primarily in Zimbabwe but also in western Mozambique (Manyika) and in south central Zambia.
2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
Horn (personal communication, 1983) reports there are about six million Shona speakers in Zimbabwe. Figures are unavailable for Mozambique and Zambia. Alexandre (1981) states there are at least one million speakers.
3 USAGE
Shona is a language of education in Zimbabwe. Numerous newspapers publish in Shona, and a sizable literature exists. Shona is also heard over the radio.
4 DIALECT SURVEY
Although there are many dialect differences in Shona, a standardized dialect is recognized.
5 ORTHOGRAPHIC STATUS
Shona has a standardized orthography.
1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN
Somali, which belongs to the East Cushitic branch of Cushitic, is spoken in the Somali Democratic Republic, the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, eastern and northeastern Kenya, and southern Djibouti.
2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
No complete figures are available for the number of speakers of Somali. Heine (1980) notes 185,000 Somali speakers in Kenya. Africa South of the Sahara (1981, p.330) notes that "slightly over half the population [310,000] of Djibouti are Somalis."
3 USAGE
Somali is the national language of Somalia, where it is used in the schools, government, and daily commerce. There is a Somali daily newspaper in Mogadishu, Xiddigta Oktoobar. Somali is heard on Voice of Kenya radio, Radio Diffusion - Television de Djibouti, the Voice of Revolutionary Ethiopia, the BBC, and Radio Moscow, all using Common Somali.
4 DIALECT SURVEY
There are three mutually intelligible language clusters of Somali (Johnson, personal communication, 1983): Common or Northern (Isaaq); Central or (Af-) Raxan-Weyn; (Af-) Benaadir or coastal. However, according to Saeed (Central Somali: a grammatical outline, 1982), the central dialect series is not mutually intelligible with Benadir or Common Somali. Many materials have previously been prepared in Common Somali, but the Mogadishu variety appears to be slowly becoming the standard. For further information on the Somali dialects in Kenya, see Heine (1980).
5 ORTHOGRAPHY STATUS
A Romanized orthography
for Somali was adopted as the only official one in 1972, replacing a
variety of older orthographies.
1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN
Tigrinya belongs to the Tigrinya branch of Northern Ethio-Semitic (Bender 1976) and is the main language of Tigre Province, Ethiopia.
2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
There are around 3.5 million speakers of Tigrinya, according to WTPR (1982); Bender (1976) notes 3.6 million.
3 USAGE
Tigrinya is a major language of Ethiopia. (Note: Orthodox Christians who speak this language are called Habesh; Muslims are often called Jabarta.) Tigrinya is used on Ethiopia's Voice of the Revolution and is also heard over the Sudan Broadcasting Service.
4 DIALECT SURVEY
No dialect survey has come to our attention. Ullendorff (1973, p. 121, and 1955) considers regional variation in Tigrinya to be insignificant, although Bender, Hailu, and Cowley (1976, p. 564) believe that Tigrinya has several dialects.
5 ORTHOGRAPHY STATUS
The official and traditional orthography for Tigrinya is also that used for Amharic and Ge'ez.
Top of Page     |
