Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland: Ndebele-Kalanga Relations in Southern Zimbabwe, 1930-1960

Msindo, Enocent

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Title:	Language and Ethnicity in Matabeleland: Ndebele-Kalanga Relations in Southern Zimbabwe, 1930-1960
Author:	Msindo, Enocent
Year:	2005
Periodical:	International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:	38
Issue:	1
Pages:	79-103
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zimbabwe
Subjects:	Kalanga Ndebele (Zimbabwe) ethnicity language policy colonialism History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/40036464
Abstract:	The Ndebele and Kalanga people inhabit the largely neglected, dry, but politically assertive region of Matabeleland (southern Zimbabwe). Today it would seem that both Ndebele and Kalanga have developed a joint political community, but this development is often mistaken for a joint ethnicity. Focusing on the period from the 1930s to 1960, this paper examines the relations between the Kalanga and Ndebele peoples based on the way these two groups have developed and expressed their ethnic identities through language, since language difference provides an anchor for ethnic identity. To the Kalanga, debates about Tjikalanga were born out of their quest for ethnic revival and the desire to contain an expanding Ndebele identity. The Ndebele themselves were divided between those who advocated the use of Zulu, believing that language to be the root of their society, and those who preferred Sindebele for the same reasons. Such debates illustrate different social and moral standpoints about the meaning of being Ndebele, or of being Kalanga. The paper contributes to a revision of the constructivist perspective on ethnicity. By concentrating their attention on elite interactions in the construction of ethnicity, scholars of constructivism ignore the role of African commoners in the social construction of ethnicity in the colonial era. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]