The People
More than two-thirds of the population of Zimbabwe speaks Shona as their first language. Shona-speaking people (made up of the Karanga, Korekore, Manyika, Ndau, Rozwi and Zezuru, groups) live mainly in the eastern two-thirds of the country (Mashonaland), including the capital of Harare.
Around one in five Zimbabweans (the Ndebele and Kalanga groups) speak Northern Ndebele, commonly known as Sindebele and are mainly settled in the western third of the country (Matabeleland).
Both Shona and Sindebele are Bantu languages originating from the time when Bantu-speaking tribes populated the region well over a 1000 years ago.
Other ethnic groups in the southeast of the country, representing around one percent of the population each, are the Tonga in the Zambezi Valley, the Shangaan or Hlengwe in the Low Veld, and the Venda on the border with South Africa.
All the national languages, with the exception of the official language, English, are of Bantu origin (a branch of the Niger-Congo language family). The four main dialects of Shona share a common vocabulary and similar tonal and grammatical features.
The Ndebele in the nineteenth century were the first to use the name "Shona" to refer to the peoples they conquered; although the exact meaning of the term is unclear, it is very possibly derogatory in nature.
Sindebele is a click language of the Nguni group of Bantu languages; other members of this language group are Zulu and Xhosa, which are spoken mainly in South Africa. Other languages spoken in Zimbabwe are Tonga, Shangaan, and Venda, which are shared with large groups of Tonga in Zambia and Shangaan and Venda in South Africa.
San (Bushmen) hunter gatherers s are believed to have been the earliest inhabitants of the area that is now Zimbabwe (indeed in much of Southern Africa). When Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from central Africa, second century, the San moved on or were absorbed rapidly into the farming and cattle-herding culture of the Bantu speaking groups. Little is known about those early Bantu groups, but the present-day Shona can be traced to a group that moved into the area around 1 200 AD.
From the eleventh century, after commercial relations were established with Swahili traders on the Mozambique coast, up until the fifteenth century, the Shona kingdom was arguably one of southern Africa's wealthiest and most powerful societies. Its political and religious centre reached its zenith at Great Zimbabwe, a city of ten thousand to twenty thousand people, that was built and developed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries by the Rozwi dynasty.
The city was constructed from granite, using highly developed stone-cutting and construction techniques – its decline in the 15th Century is mostly thought to have been due to the lack of resources that would have been required to sustain the population.
New dynasties followed the Rozwi of Great Zimbabwe, but the kingdom never again reached the levels of influence enjoyed at its peak. Swahili and later Portuguese traders tried to exploit internal differences in the kingdom, they never succeeded. The second significant encounter in the making of Zimbabwe was the Ndebele invasion (brought about by internal strife in South Africa) of the early 1880s under the command of Mzilikazi, who established his capital at Inyati to the north of Bulawayo. He was succeeded by Lobengula, who shifted the capital to Bulawayo.
Some 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas, and Harare and Bulawayo account for most of the approximately 30 percent in urban areas.
In the twentieth century, there were three major changes in the demographic and settlement pattern – firstly the acquisition of large tracts of land by white settlers for commercial agriculture, until shortly after World War II resulted in a situation in which half the land was owned by well under 1 percent of the population, with limited access to land for the vast majority of the rural population.
Secondly, the development of industry in towns and cities, particularly Harare and Bulawayo, required that men seeking work had to live in urban areas, leaving women and children in the rural areas. Most jobs are still found in urban areas and employment income rather than income from farming is the most important factor in the standard of living among smallholder families. The third major change has involved the age profile of the population.
Around one in five Zimbabweans (the Ndebele and Kalanga groups) speak Northern Ndebele, commonly known as Sindebele and are mainly settled in the western third of the country (Matabeleland).
Both Shona and Sindebele are Bantu languages originating from the time when Bantu-speaking tribes populated the region well over a 1000 years ago.
Other ethnic groups in the southeast of the country, representing around one percent of the population each, are the Tonga in the Zambezi Valley, the Shangaan or Hlengwe in the Low Veld, and the Venda on the border with South Africa.
All the national languages, with the exception of the official language, English, are of Bantu origin (a branch of the Niger-Congo language family). The four main dialects of Shona share a common vocabulary and similar tonal and grammatical features.
The Ndebele in the nineteenth century were the first to use the name "Shona" to refer to the peoples they conquered; although the exact meaning of the term is unclear, it is very possibly derogatory in nature.
Sindebele is a click language of the Nguni group of Bantu languages; other members of this language group are Zulu and Xhosa, which are spoken mainly in South Africa. Other languages spoken in Zimbabwe are Tonga, Shangaan, and Venda, which are shared with large groups of Tonga in Zambia and Shangaan and Venda in South Africa.
San (Bushmen) hunter gatherers s are believed to have been the earliest inhabitants of the area that is now Zimbabwe (indeed in much of Southern Africa). When Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from central Africa, second century, the San moved on or were absorbed rapidly into the farming and cattle-herding culture of the Bantu speaking groups. Little is known about those early Bantu groups, but the present-day Shona can be traced to a group that moved into the area around 1 200 AD.
From the eleventh century, after commercial relations were established with Swahili traders on the Mozambique coast, up until the fifteenth century, the Shona kingdom was arguably one of southern Africa's wealthiest and most powerful societies. Its political and religious centre reached its zenith at Great Zimbabwe, a city of ten thousand to twenty thousand people, that was built and developed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries by the Rozwi dynasty.
The city was constructed from granite, using highly developed stone-cutting and construction techniques – its decline in the 15th Century is mostly thought to have been due to the lack of resources that would have been required to sustain the population.
New dynasties followed the Rozwi of Great Zimbabwe, but the kingdom never again reached the levels of influence enjoyed at its peak. Swahili and later Portuguese traders tried to exploit internal differences in the kingdom, they never succeeded. The second significant encounter in the making of Zimbabwe was the Ndebele invasion (brought about by internal strife in South Africa) of the early 1880s under the command of Mzilikazi, who established his capital at Inyati to the north of Bulawayo. He was succeeded by Lobengula, who shifted the capital to Bulawayo.
Some 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas, and Harare and Bulawayo account for most of the approximately 30 percent in urban areas.
In the twentieth century, there were three major changes in the demographic and settlement pattern – firstly the acquisition of large tracts of land by white settlers for commercial agriculture, until shortly after World War II resulted in a situation in which half the land was owned by well under 1 percent of the population, with limited access to land for the vast majority of the rural population.
Secondly, the development of industry in towns and cities, particularly Harare and Bulawayo, required that men seeking work had to live in urban areas, leaving women and children in the rural areas. Most jobs are still found in urban areas and employment income rather than income from farming is the most important factor in the standard of living among smallholder families. The third major change has involved the age profile of the population.