Bold Innovations at Great Zimbabwe University: The Case of Literacy in Zimbabwe’s Marginalized Languages

Abstract

The world over, the status of marginalized languages continues to generatediverse and competing political discourses. During the colonial period,Lusophone, Anglophone and Francophone countries sidelined indigenouslanguages. This created a centre-periphery relationship between thesecolonial languages and indigenous languages respectively. In the postcolonialperiod, linguistic re-configurations ensued. Whereas this time thewestern languages prevailed on the basis of prestige, indigenous languagestended to be recognized on the basis of numerical superiority and linguisticaffiliation of the ruling elite. This created sites of struggle that continue tore-play colonial linguistic imbalances even today. This study reflects on theliteracy initiatives that promote marginalized languages in Institutions ofHigher Learning in Zimbabwe. It argues that the Zimbabwean educationsystem has stultified minority languages. Thirty years after independence,Zimbabwe is still grappling with embryonic programmes to resuscitatethe status of marginalized languages through mother tongue literacyinitiatives. Specifically, the study focuses on the literacy campaign effortsof Great Zimbabwe University on its mandate to promote indigenouslanguages in Zimbabwe.
Keywords: marginalized languages, indigenous languages, colonial languages, mother tongue literacy.