Languages of Zimbabwe

Languages of Zimbabwe
Official languages Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, "Koisan" (presumably Tsoa), Nambya, Ndau, IsiNdebele, Shangani, Shona, "sign language" (Zimbabwean sign languages), SeSotho, Tonga, Tswana, TshiVenda, IsiXhosa[1]

Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa.[1] Due to its history as both a British Colony and as the State of Rhodesia, English, Shona and Ndebele are the most widely spoken languages in the country. Approximately 70% of the population is Shona speaking and speaks Shona as their first language.[2] Also it is said that around 20% are Ndebele and speak IsiNdebele as their first language. These statistics have not been officialised yet because Zimbabwe has never conducted a census that enumerated people according to languages.

References

  1. 1 2 The following languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa are the officially recognised languages of Zimbabwe. l(CONSTITUTION OF ZIMBABWE (final draft) Archived 2013-10-02 at the Wayback Machine.).
  2. ↑ "Ndebele". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-01-05.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.