Tracing the Trajectory of Tshwao: A Socio-Historical Analysis of a Khoisan Language’s Endangerment in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper gives a socio-historical account of factors that may have contributed to the current state of endangerment of Tshwao, the Khoisan people’s language in Zimbabwe. The premise of the paper are observations that interventions being put in place to revive the language are failing and thus the need to go back into the past to establish factors that contributed to the impending demise of the language. Content for this paper was extracted from a doctoral thesis that utilised qualitative methods to gather data. Findings revealed that linguistic and extra-linguistic factors may have affected the maintenance of Khoisan languages. Among these are numerical domination of the Khoisan by the Bantu people, subjugation by Mzilikazi during his conquests as well as selective development of languages by missionaries which led to assimilation and language marginalisation. Furthermore, the implementation of discriminatory land, wildlife and language policies by the colonial government which resulted in relocations, language contact situations and dispersed settlements, also affected language maintenance. The study concludes that Khoisan language endangerment spans from history and interventions need to include redress of historical injustices first for them to be successful.