Shona Language, Culture and Society
The Shona are an amalgamation of related dialects first coined by Doke in 1957. Although Shona identity is believed to be a modern nationalistic invention, the people who define this cultural cluster posses a number of undeniable commonalties such as a shared politico-geographic location. The majority of Shona speakers in southern-east Africa reside in the national republic of Zimbabwe, and within the north-western region of Mozambique, with a number of isolated scattered segments in South Africa, Malawi Botswana, and Zambia.
Among the diverse dialects, the term Shona s commonly referred to as a modern invention of post-colonial nationalism. The linguistic categorization Shona was first utilized by South African linguist Clemmons Doke in 1931 to consolidate and unify the diverse collection of languages spoken within the then Rhodesia. Linguistically, Shona is an amalgamation of mutually intelligible dialects which include the following six dominant groups of Kalanga, Karanga, Zezuru, Ndau, Korekore, and the Manyika. The term Shona, is a nationalistic modern phenomena which is described as being an artificial ethno-linguistic category used to consolidate an amalgamation of mutually intelligible dialects. The Shona are Zimbabwe's largest ethnic groups comprising of 80% of the population.
One of the most profound consequences of British colonial settlement was the displacement of the Shona people from their mineral rich lands to arable tribal trust (home) lands where most were forced to discontinue their traditional practice of subsistence farming. Furthermore, the imposition of colonial administrative taxes forced the male labor force to migrate to mines of large scale farms to earn cash wages. Zimbabwean scholars argue that this transition from self-sufficiency in subsistence farming to a dependency of migrant labor is the primary contributor to changing Shona social systems. As a result, Rural Shona communities are built around a patrilineal system of kinship which continues to govern much of Shona social behavior. Today's social and economic situations force the majority of the Shona workforce to pursue urban residential patterns
Traditional Shona social systems. The common sociopolitical structure among the Shona revolves around the matobos (totem or clan) which continues to influence social interactions. In particular, the custom observing totemic taboos in relations to marriage continues to be widely practiced.