What is Central Karanga In This Book

This is the cover of a book published in 1931 by the Witwatersrand University Press.

This was one year after a conference at Dadaya at which missionaries decided upon a "standard" language for the various dialects spoken in Southern Rhodesia. They decided to call that "standard" Unified Shona.

It is from that decision that the name Shona became popular. Previously it had not been commonly used.

The title of the book is "A Grammar of Central Karanga as at Present Spoken in Central Mashonaland Southern Rhodesia".

I know most people have already made subconscious and uncritical assumptions on what this Central Karanga dialect is.

What is the geographic area where this Central Karanga was spoken and what is it most likely called today? Fortunately the title of the book gives us a geographic locale. Central Mashonaland.

Now let us take a look at the provinces of Southern Rhodesia. We had Victoria Province and it is not referred to in the title of the book.

We also had Midlands province which at the time included Hartley District and Charter District. Hartley is now called Chegutu and the district Mhondoro.

Charter district is now called Chikomba with the main town being Chivhu, then called Enkeldoorn.

In short Central Mashonaland referred to Seke and Zvimba districts going northwards. The dialect being referred to as Central Karanga in this book is most likely what today we call Zezuru and may include Korekore.

However given that at the time students of Bantu languages would have been based in urban centres with little access to remote areas my guess is that this was the work of someone who did their studies from Salisbury.