Shona evolved as a street language in Zimbabwe after this country introduced a policy that compelled all broadcast stations to air 75 percent of locally-produced material. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Hilary Siyachitema
HARARE, Jun 10 2014 (IPS)

“Ndipei sand dzangu,” (give me my hammers) sings Zimbabwean artist Winky D. He may be singing in Shona, the local language spoken by some 80 percent of Zimbabweans, but his Shona is different. It’s Street Shona. So what he really means, loosely translated, is that someone is exceptionally good at what they do and therefore needs to be recognised for this.

This southern African nation’s local language, Shona, has taken on an artistic form which has seen the language transform.

Shona, has its origins in the Bantu languages and is both a written and spoken language with dialects that include Zezuru, Korekore, Ndau and Manyika.

The evolution of Shona as a street language in Zimbabwe has become synonymous with Urban Grooves, a Zimbabwean music genre which became popular when this country introduced a policy that compelled all broadcast stations to air 75 percent of locally-produced material.“wotoshaya kuti zviri kufamba seyi” (not sure why things are going the way they are going) -- a popular phrase believed to have been started by local comedian Richard Matimba

“Our language, Shona, is now advanced, we are at a different level,” Tazvitya Kaseke from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, tells IPS as he describes the evolution of Shona into a form of art.

Although Urban Grooves is a form of music that has a largely youthful following, terms derived from this genre are not unique to the youth. Older people have also been known to use these terms.

An example is the current phrase “wotoshaya kuti zviri kufamba seyi” (not sure why things are going the way they are going), which has become popular in Harare. This phrase is believed to have been started by local comedian Richard Matimba.

Stanley Maniste, a youth based in Chitungwiza, a satellite town south of Harare, says street language here may have been made more popular by Urban Grooves but it was actually born on the streets.

“Music is just a vehicle that makes the current affairs of the street more popular. Street language is actually born in the streets of townships like Chitungwiza and Mbare,” Maniste tells IPS.

McDonald Nyathi, a budding artist also based in Chitungwiza, attributes the evolution of Shona to society itself and adds that music and the media create a platform for society’s views to be aired.

“I believe that this is a two-way street. Society creates and then artists and the media air the creation of society. But sometimes artists also create and these then become popular on the streets,” Nyathi tells IPS.

Music producer Lloyd Goredema links the increase in colloquial words and phrases to the economic slump in Zimbabwe.

“When the economy hit rock bottom people had to find ways of sustaining their livelihoods. This caused an increase in the number of artists, popularly known as urban groovers,” he tells IPS.

“This is also a result of the government’s 75 percent local content policy, which was introduced in 2002. The country didn’t have money for importing music by international artists, hence the airwaves were inundated with music that showed street and township life in Zimbabwe,” Goredema says.

Nyathi says that street language may not have been obvious prior to 2002, but it existed prior to this.

“Now that the channels have opened up it appears as if street language has suddenly increased,” Nyathi says.

Street language is also commonly derived from other sources like the ever increasing number of touts (popularly referred to as mahwindi) who work around taxi ranks in Zimbabwe’s major cities.

Businesses that advertise using both print and broadcast media have also added to the hype. A colloquial term “zva zvinhu” (these have become good things) has been made popular by a bread advertisement.

A study titled “What’s new in Shona street lingo?” conducted by Shumirai Nyota and Rugare Mareva, shows that street language in Zimbabwe exists because of a number of factors.

“Shona lingo consists of highly informal words or phrases which have been coined or formed by mixing languages. Speakers of Shona lingo use it in their informal discussions on any subject matter, especially on topical issues in Zimbabwe, such as politics, socio-economic issues and HIV. The vehicles or channels used to transmit street lingo include, emails, cell phone text messages, Shona lingo chat forums and urban groove music,” the study reveals.

Street language is not unique to Harare or the major cities of Zimbabwe. Youth and middle aged people in the rural areas of Zimbabwe also use the same kind of street language.

“The language starts in the streets and backyard recording studios of the major cities, especially Harare. It’s easy for the language to get to the rural areas because people travel regularly and because of the various technology which enables a lot of the language and trends to travel,” Tawanda Huhlu, an aspiring musician from Harare, tells IPS.

The phenomenon of street or colloquial language is not unique to the people of Zimbabwe but research has also shown that this trend is prevalent in other African countries. A  2009 study by a German researcher Flora Veit-Wild, called “Zimbolicious – the creative potential of linguistic innovation”, states that similar tendencies can be observed in the big cities of east, west and central Africa.

“Sheng, a mixture of Swahili and English is a language variety that has developed among young people in Nairobi, while Camfranglais, a bland of French, English and African languages, is spoken by mostly urban Cameroonians,” Veit-Wild notes in the study.

Artists see street language as an art as well as a glue that unites people.

“This kind of language unites us as a nation. We speak a common language, especially as young people and this in some ways creates an identity for us,” Goredema says.

At a Kurdish class in Derik in northeast Syria. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Karlos Zurutuza
DERIK, Northern Syria, Sep 10 2012 (IPS)

“I want to learn how to read and write in my own language,” says Manal, a young Kurd from Syria. Neither she nor any of Manal’s 30 classmates have ever been so close to achieving their goal.

And it’s not that Manal doesn’t have an education: the 21-year-old explains in almost perfect English that she hopes to get her degree in economics next year at the university of Hasake, 600 kilometres northeast of Damascus. But until two months ago, she had never had a chance to write in her native Kurdish, banned for the nearly 50 years the Baath party has remained in power in Syria.

During this summer vacation, Manal has attended Kurdish language classes at the Badarhan academy in Derik, 700 kilometres northeast of Damascus. This is one of two language centres in town that have recently included Kurdish in their offers: three one-hour sessions a week, free. The teaching is funded by contributions from private individuals.

“I speak English, so I was already familiar with the Latin alphabet, also used for Kurdish,” Manal explains just before she walks into class.

At the end of the school day, headmaster Mohamed Amin Saadun briefs IPS on the background to this initiative. It’s just two months old in Derik but it has precedents in virtually every Syrian location under Kurdish control. Some opened almost from the very start of the uprising more than a year and a half ago.

“We had taught English and Turkish for years and we were aching to get the opportunity to include Kurdish language lessons, as well as history, poetry and culture of our people,” says Saadun, also a renowned writer and poet.

Mohamed Sadik gave two of his two back rooms to the school for free so that it could accommodate the rush of new students. “A lot of people have died for the Kurdish cause,” says Sadik amid the snap of the metal shutters closing behind him. “What I’ve done is nothing compared to that.”

Following the agreement signed last July between the main Kurdish political parties in Syria in Arbil – the administrative capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq – educational management in the region is controlled by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the dominant coalition among the Syrian Kurds. Today, the education committee is working against the clock to include subjects like math and history in the academic year.

With the coming of the Baath Party to power in 1963, the Kurds of Syria – estimated to be between two and four million depending on the source – have been subjected to a systematic policy of Arabisation. But now Badarhan has 600 students learning Kurdish.

Theirs is an Indo-European language of five variants, two of them are dominant: Kurmanji spoken by the Kurds of Turkey and Syria and written in Latin script, and Sorani, used by most Kurds in Iraq and Iran and written in the Arabic alphabet. There is a standard for each of these two variants but still no common language and alphabet for the 40 million Kurds worldwide.

Manal shares her desk with Fatima, a nurse. “It is doubtless important for us, but especially for the future generations,” Fatima says. She recalls she was once expelled from school for a week for speaking Kurdish in class.

“We would speak it in secret, even with some of the teachers.”

Fatima today strives to write correctly in her native Kurmanji thanks to a photocopied grammar book but, above all, to the volunteer teachers such as the young tutor Hoshank.

“When I heard that they needed teachers I did not hesitate for a second,” he says.

“I learned how to write by myself, through the Internet and books I would keep hidden at home. Today I want to make things easier for others and to do something for my people.”

The colonial borders drawn in secret between Britain and France in 1916 over the Baghdad railway line divided the local Kurdish families into Turkey and Syria. The subsequent Treaty of Sevres (1920) considered the creation of an independent Kurdish state but the agreement was never fulfilled.

Since the Internet arrived, Damascus has enforced a severe veto over the main social networks and all sorts of websites the regime considers potentially dangerous. Such blockade has been worsened by the erratic Syrian telephone communications since the beginning of the war.

Most Syrian Kurds, however, benefit from almost barrier-free Internet access thanks to the Turkish network across the border that can be easily accessed. Albeit unintentionally, that would be the Turkish government’s contribution to a cohesion of the Kurdish people amid their cultural revolution.