Culture Preservation Through Language Maintenance Among Linguistic Minority Groups: A Case Study of the Shona Speakers of Kenya

Abstract

This study addressed the issue of culture preservation among linguistic minority groups through language maintenance practices. The main objective of the study was to investigate the various language maintenance strategies used by linguistic minority groups in Kenya to preserve their culture. The minority linguistic group that was investigated in this study is the Shona language community in Kenya originally from Zimbabwe. Language is an integral part of culture in any community and so maintaining a language is synonymous to maintaining a culture. Language maintenance efforts, especially among linguistic minority groups like the Kenyan Shonas, thus go a long way in maintaining their culture as this study set out to illustrate. The study was guided by the Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory (EVT) by Giles, Bourhis and Taylor (1977) and Landweer (2000). The theory shows how a linguistic group is able to maintain and protect its identity, language and culture in a multilingual society setup. Data for this study was obtained from the library and also from the field in Shona residential settlements using questionnaires, interview, observation and focused group discussion method. Analyzed data was presented qualitatively and quantitively. The study findings shows that the Shona speakers of Kenya have employed various strategies in maintaining their language and culture as a minority linguistic group from around late 1950s, when they first entered Kenya from their motherland Zimbabwe as missionaries. These strategies include use of Shona language at the home, religious, marriage and work domains as tools of culture and language maintenance. Other strategies of Shona culture and laguage maintenance include use of Shona elders to teach younger generations their language ad culture, use of social interraction networks, community meetings and Shona traditional ceremonies. This study came to a conclusion that the Kenyan Shonas, one of the minority linguistic group in Kenya, have been able to preserve and maintain their culture in Kenya through language maintenance strategies listed above since they landed in Kenya in the late 1950s. However, the study recommends that simmilar studies should be carried out inorder to find out whether other linguistic minority speakers of Kenya have been able to maintain their culture through language maintenance practicies. Presently the Shonas of Kenya are listed as the 45th tribe of Kenya after being awarded Kenyan citizenship status in 2020 by the Kenyan Government.