AY Honors/African Lore/Answer Key
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Shona (IPA: [ʃona]) 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. They also speak official languages of their respective countries: English in Zimbabwe and Portuguese in Mozambique. Shona are Christians, whether Roman Catholics or Protestants in both Mozambique and Zimbabwe, or part-Christian, part-animist-African in Zimbabwe.
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.
Most Zimbabweans 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 identify which town or village a person is from (e.g. a person claiming to be a Manyika would be from Eastern Zimbabwe, ie. towns like Mutare). The above differences in dialects developed during the dispersion of tribes across the country over a long time. The influx of immigrants, into the country from boardering countries, has obviously contributed to the variety.
