14 - L1 Rhodesian English

Summary

Introduction

The variety that is the subject of this description is the L1 English spoken mainly by descendants of European, principally British, settlers in Zimbabwe, a land-locked country in sub-Saharan Africa bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the west, Zambia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwean English (ZimE) might be grouped with South African L1 varieties as well as New Zealand and Australian Englishes as a southern hemisphere L1 variety of English descended from British input dialects transported in the course of the nineteenth century. As a southern hemisphere variety, Rhodesian English shares some phonological and grammatical features with these varieties at the same time as exhibiting some features, principally lexical, acquired through contact with L1 speakers of local, indigenous languages. A note on terminology: the L1 English variety under examination will henceforth be referred to as Rhodesian English (RhodE), spoken by white people who either settled in or who were born before 1980 in the former British colony of Southern Rhodesia and who no longer live in the country. RhodE is regarded as a fossil, non-productive dialect. Independence as a democratic republic under black majority rule in 1980 changed the social, economic and political conditions in which blacks and whites interacted in Zimbabwe; in this environment, it is appropriate to refer to the prevailing L1 English dialect in the country as Zimbabwean English (ZimE) as it is a productive and changing variety.