A SHONA ENGLISH DICTIONARY

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this dictionary has been to provide a basic Shona vocabulary. This objective implied the combined needs of Shona children and European users of every kind. A word count of some 6 000 main entries has been achieved and inset entries of derived or related words account for an additional 700 words. Borrowed words from other languages account for one entry in twelve. Most of these are borrowed from English. The language of origin has always been given.

Shona entries are all explained in Shona: and its verbs, conjunctions and adverbs are all illustrated in use by a simple example, sometimes by two. This feature should be of great profit to the European.

Another profitable feature in this dictionary is the provision of antonyms, words of opposite meaning, and they are  indicated by small capital letters in the text.

In Shona there are many extended forms of the verb, derived from a simple root. Some of these extended forms are more common than others. In general, I have preferred to list and illustrate only those forms which are somewhat irregular in form or have an English rendering so different from that suggested by the simple root, that the English speaker would not normally be able to intuit the connexion. Where extended forms are perfectly regular, with predictable English equivalents I have not bothered to make mention of them. ….