Language Planning and Policy in Zimbabwe: Past and Present

This chapter examines language planning and policy (LPP) in Zimbabwe, past and present, focusing on the dynamics of, and approaches to, LPP. It focuses on the impact of the approaches on the languages and their speakers. This study employs the Sankofa theory in order to learn from past and present approaches to LPP and their impacts to inform a new direction. Interviews, document analysis, and observations show that LPP in Zimbabwe has been largely a top-down affair. However, it also emerged that other approaches to LLP (e.g., bottom-up) were prevalent as reactions to top-down policies, response to local needs, language problems, and requirements for language management. The prevalence of the top-down approach led to the marginalization and underdevelopment of the so-called minority languages and their speakers. It also led to the violation of their linguistic human rights, and inevitably their human rights whose exercise is largely dependent on language.