Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62743 in Books
• Published on: 1994-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 228 pages

Synopsis
An essential addition to the reference works on Shona, a Bantu language, and one of Zimbabwe's major languages, spoken by about three quarters of the country's population. Shona is spoken as far north as Congo, and Kenya, and as far south as South Africa. The dictionary contains some 5,500 entries, drawings, examples of usages, and illustrations.

Customer Reviews

Halfway to understanding Shona
Having spent my childhood in the Rhodesias I picked up a lot of what was called Basic Bantu, which was then mainly Shona. So coming across this neat little book, with the illustrations for many of the key words, was a happy reminder of how many delights I had forgotten in forty years.

However, while there are quite a few words I remember from common usage that I could not find listed, so the 'Basic' in the title is relevant, I am happy that this book does make an excellent introduction to the vocabulary.

I had also forgotten how complex the language was; in some ways it has a structure analogous to Welsh, with modifiers usually being applied to the beginning of a word. Compare this with the Latin based languages we are familiar with, which use endings.

It has some essential appendices that help with clarification on the use of the modifiers, but I think these could usefully be further enhanced to be truly helpful.

However, you still need two more books if you want to be able to use Shona to any extent; Duramazwi. A Shona-English Dictionary, also by Dale but written later; and a usage book, such as Beginner's Shona (Chishona) (Hippocrene Beginner's Series) by Aquilina Mawadza (Both are available from Amazon).