AY Honors/African Lore/Answer Key

Shona (IPA: [ʃə^onə]) is the name collectively given to several groups of people in Zimbabwe and western Mozambique. Numbering about eight million people, who speak a range of related dialects whose standardised form is also known as Shona.

However, many black Zimbabweans do not self-identify as Shona, preferring instead to describe their origin in terms of their specific language/dialect group (e.g. Zezuru) or ancestry group (e.g. Rozvi). Ancestors of today's Shona groups are believed to have been the first permanent inhabitants of the region where the Great Zimbabwe site was later established, with archaeological evidence of Iron Age occupation in the 5th century AD.

Template:Ethno-stub most Zimbabweans either identify themselves as either belonging to the Ndebele or Shona ethnic group. Dialect groups are nowadays almost irrelevant because 'standard' shona is spoken throughout Zimbabwe. Dialects only help to idnetify which town or village a person is from rather (e.g. a person claiming to be a Manyika would be from Eastern Zimbabwe).