The relationship between Venda and Western Shona

Abstract

This thesis was aimed at determining what the affinities of Venda are with the Bantu languages spoken immediately to the north of the Venda region. It was during the early stages of the research done on this relationship of Venda that traces were found which pointed towards Western Shona as the Shona cluster which has closer affinity with Venda. Hitherto linguists were looking towards Karanga of the Central Shona group of clusters for a possible link with Venda. In order to be able to follow up this clue, fieldwork had to he undertaken on the dialect situation of the Western Shona cluster. This research resulted in several dialects being identified for the first time as definitely belonging to this Western cluster. The ones which were found to be directly connected with the research project are Lemba, Lembethu. Twamamba and Pfumbi (and to a lesser extent Jaunda), because they are geographically closer to Venda than any other dialect to its north. Of those dialects, it was only Twamamba that. was previously classified with the Western Shona cluster. Three of the dialects were found to be spoken - though to a lesser extent in recent years - even within the borders of Venda. They are Lemba, Lembethu and Twamamba. Of these three Lemba had the longest contact with Venda because they stayed together in the present Zimbabwe already before the final migration of the Venda to their present country. Apart from the above, historical and archaeological findings pointed towards a link with the Kalanga dialect spoken towards the west of Zimbabwe. This important clue was the final motivation to link up into a single project what was originally embarked upon as two completely different projects: (a) determining what the relationship between Venda and the dialects to its north could be, and (b) the publication of the history of the Kalanga as recorded by Masola Kumilo. This resulted 111 two volumes on Kalanga being made an integral part of this thesis by adding them as supplement. Volume I contains transcriptions and translations of manuscripts which were written in the Kalanga dialect of the western Shona cluster of' diallects - one of the six Shona clusters spoken mainly within the borders of Zimbabwe. Volume II contains annotations - both linguistic and historical - based on the Kalanga texts of Volume l. The Kalanga manuscripts provided the most valuable linguistic material in written form in a field where almost nothing is available in print. This is even more important in view of the fact that the dialects mentioned above are all to greater or lesser extent falling into disuse, making it very difficult to obtain linguistic information on an extensive scale. Together. with the identification of the various Western Shona dialects, a study was made of those features which are characteristic of this cluster. When finally taking into consideration the historical background of Venda as well as its geographical contact and linguistic relationship with Western Shona, sufficient proof was found to come to the conclusion that Venda has its closest affinity not with Karanga but with Western Shona. In the last instance Venda was proved to be a Bantu language in its own right. It is not a bridge language. It ls closely related to Western Shona by which it was considerably influenced for many centuries