See relevant variety: Korekore, Zezuru, Manyika, Karanga
The Central Shonic languages are a cluster of closely related languages and varieties: Korekore (S11), Zezuru (S12), Manyika (S13), Karanga (S14), Ndau (S15), each of which have numerous varieties. These were harmonized into a single language, Standard Shona, by Clement Doke. He was invited by the Rhodesian administration to do so for literary purposes: one instead of multiple orthographies would make the printing of for example the Bible or schoolbooks easier. This resulted in the Report on the Unification of The Shona Dialects (Doke 1931). Before this report, different missionary groups used their own orthographies which would now be unified in this new orthography. Standard Shona as represented by Doke is mainly based on the Zezuru cluster for both spelling and grammar with influence from (in descending order) Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore (Doke and Chimhundu 2005: 9). Doke’s work still forms the basis of the orthography used to write Shona nowadays, although it has seen two revisions in 1955 and 1967 by the Shona Language Committee (Doke & Chimhundu 2005: 8-9) to for example replace eight of Doke’s original symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with Roman letters:
o ɓ > b
o ɗ > d
o ʂ > sv
o ʐ > zv
o ʃ > sh
o ʒ > zh
o ʋ > v
o ŋ > ng’
Where Doke used the principle of ‘one sound, one symbol’, this turned out to be inaccessible in use, for example because symbols like this do not exist on a type writer or people were unfamiliar with what the symbols represented as they were from the IPA. There has not been a revision since 1967. For an extensive overview about the history of Shona orthography and orthographical revisions, see Doke and Chimhundu (2005). Other important works include the bilingual Standard Shona Dictionary edited by Hannan (1959), which was revised in 1984 (Hannan 1984), and a monolingual Shona dictionary, Durumazwi Guru reChiShona by Chimhundu in the late nineties (Chimhundu 1996). The bilingual Shona dictionary by Hannan (1959; 1984) was a collaborative project of which he was the editor, and information on varieties is included here. Chimhundu’s (1996) work includes example sentences but has fewer entries than earlier work and does not include information about Shona varieties. Further, it is unclear which variety it is based on; this might be Zezuru following Doke’s work, but Karanga was also influential in this period.
Chimhundu, H. 1996. Durumazwi Guru reChiShona. Harare: College Press.
Doke, C.M. 1931. Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects. Hertford: Stephan Austin.
Doke, C.M. and H. Chimhundu. 2005. The Unification of the Shona Dialects. A Photographic reprint with an Introduction by Herbert Chimhundu. Oslo: ALLEX Project.
Hannan, M.S.J. 1959. Standard Shona Dictionary. Harare: Literate Bureau.
Hannan, M.S.J. 1984. Standard Shona Dictionary. Harare: College Press.
Hannan, M.S.J. 1984. Standard Shona Dictionary. Harare: College Press.
Orthography (cf. Omniglot)
a [a]
b [ɓ]
bh [b̤]
ch [t͡ʃ]
d [ɗ]
dh [d̤]
e [e]
f [f]
g [ɡ̤]
h [ɦ]
i [i]
j [dʒ]
k [k]
l [l]
m [m]
n [n]
nh [n̤]
o [o]
p [p]
r [r]
s [s]
sh [ʃ]
t [t]
u [u]
v [ʋ]
vh [v̤]
w [w]
y [j]
z [z̤]
zh [ʒ̤]
Other letter combinations
bv [b͡v̤]
dz [d͡z̤]
dzv [d͡z̤ᵝ]
dy [d̤ʲg]
mb [ᵐb]
mbw [ᵐbw]
mh [m̤]
mv [mʋ̤]
nd [ⁿd]
ng [ŋ]
nj [ⁿd͡ʒ̤]
ny [ɲ]
nz [ⁿz̤]
nzv [ⁿz̤ᵝ]
pf [p͡f]
sv [sᶲ]
sw [skw]
ts [t͡s]
tsv [t͡sᶲ]
ty [tʲk]
zv [z̤ᵝ]
b [ɓ]
bh [b̤]
ch [t͡ʃ]
d [ɗ]
dh [d̤]
e [e]
f [f]
g [ɡ̤]
h [ɦ]
i [i]
j [dʒ]
k [k]
l [l]
m [m]
n [n]
nh [n̤]
o [o]
p [p]
r [r]
s [s]
sh [ʃ]
t [t]
u [u]
v [ʋ]
vh [v̤]
w [w]
y [j]
z [z̤]
zh [ʒ̤]
Other letter combinations
bv [b͡v̤]
dz [d͡z̤]
dzv [d͡z̤ᵝ]
dy [d̤ʲg]
mb [ᵐb]
mbw [ᵐbw]
mh [m̤]
mv [mʋ̤]
nd [ⁿd]
ng [ŋ]
nj [ⁿd͡ʒ̤]
ny [ɲ]
nz [ⁿz̤]
nzv [ⁿz̤ᵝ]
pf [p͡f]
sv [sᶲ]
sw [skw]
ts [t͡s]
tsv [t͡sᶲ]
ty [tʲk]
zv [z̤ᵝ]
Older orthographical conventions of the Shona alphabet between 1931 and 1955 include:
b = ɓ, d = ɗ, ng = ŋ, sv = ȿ, v = ʋ, zv = ɀ.
b = ɓ, d = ɗ, ng = ŋ, sv = ȿ, v = ʋ, zv = ɀ.