Vanhu vese vanoberekwa vakasununguka uyewo vakaenzana pahunhu nekodzero dzavo. Vanhu vese vanechipo chokufunga nekuziva chakaipa nechakanaka saka vanofanira kubatana nomweya wohusahwira. Shona and other languages of Southern and Eastern Africa include whistling sounds, (this should not be confused with whistled speech). the apostrophe can be used after the character "n" to create a sound similar to the "-ng" from the English word "ping". An example word is "n'anga", which is the word for a traditional healer. [9]

Ndambakuwa, Victor. "Shona word n'anga in the Shona Dictionary". VaShona Project . Retrieved 30 November 2021. Shona's five vowels are pronounced as in Spanish: [a, e, i, o, u]. Each vowel is pronounced separately even if they fall in succession. For example, Unoenda kupi? ("Where are you going?") is pronounced [u.no.e.nda.ku.pi]. Basic English – Shona dictionary, Afro Asiatic Languages Edition, Sept 5, 2000, ISBN 978-0869220146 Shona is closely related to Ndau, Kalanga and is related to Tonga, Chewa, Tumbuka, Tsonga and Venda. Clement M. Doke (1932). "Report on the unification of Shona dialects". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. JSTOR. 6 (4): 1097–1099. JSTOR 606944.The first novel in Shona, Solomon Mutswairo's Feso, was published in 1957. Subsequently, hundreds of novels, short story collections and poetry volumes in Shona have appeared. Shona is taught in the schools, but after the first few grades it is not the general medium of instruction for subjects other than Shona grammar and literature.

The larger group of historically related languages—called Shona or Shonic languages by linguists—also includes Ndau (Eastern Shona) and Kalanga (Western Shona). In Guthrie's classification of Bantu languages, zone S.10 designates the Shonic group. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Ryan K. Shorsed. "Just put your lips together and blow? The whistled fricatives of Southern Bantu" (PDF). University of California. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 June 2011. Prefix ( Chivakashure) e.g. words in class 1 have prefix mu-, class 8 zvi-, class 10 dzi-, class 11 ru-, etc. Empty prefix units refer to words that do not require a prefix

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Meanings ( Zvaanoreva) e.g. words found in class 1 and 2 describe a person: munhu ("person") is in mupanda 1 and musikana ("girl") is in mupanda 2. Brauner, Sigmund (1995) A grammatical sketch of Shona: including historical notes. Köln: Rüdiger Koppe. Maho (2009) recognizes Korekore, Zezuru, Manyika, Karanga, and Ndau as distinct languages within the Shona cluster. [3] Phonology [ edit ] All syllables in Shona end in a vowel. Consonants belong to the next syllable. For example, mangwanani ("morning") is syllabified as ma.ngwa.na.ni; "Zimbabwe" is zi.mba.bwe. Shona is written with a phonemic orthography, with only slightly different pronunciation or grammatical differences according to variety. Shona has two tones, a high and a low tone, but these tones are not indicated in the standard writing system.