There is evidence that at least some of the contemporary regional names of African tribes, dialects and languages are fairly recent inventions. This article deals with the case of Zimbabwe, arguing that missionary language policies from the 1890s to the 1920s were an important factor in this process. The South African linguist C. Doke was brought in to resolve conflicts about the orthography of Shona. His ‘Report on the unification of the Shona dialects’ (1931) shows how the language policies of the Christian denominations contributed to the creation and promotion of Zezuru, Karanga and Manyika as the main groupings of dialects in the central area which were later incorporated in Doke’s unified Shona orthography, together with Ndau. It would appear that for the indigenous African population, the price of Christianity, Western education and a new perception of language unity was the creation of regional ethnic identities that were at least potentially antagonistic and open to political manipulation. These imposed identities have become fixed in the collective mind of Africa, and the modern nation States of the continent now seem to be stuck with them. Notes, ref.
