O. Vengeyi, The Bible in the Service of Pan-Africanismtual fact. Communicating to Christians therefore means communicating
to the majority of any given community in Zimbabwe. And citing the
Bible is one of the many ways by which one can appeal to all the Chris-
tians, irrespective of their different denominations. But why would he
cite the vernacular Bible? This question takes us straight into the second
major assumption regarding Mahoso’s reasons for citing the Bible.
The second major assumption regarding Mahoso’s interest in the Bible
particularly the vernacular (Ndau translation), could be related to the
above. It relates to pan-African ideology and numbers of people who can
read and understand Ndau. Ndau, the dialect, is spoken in South-East-
ern parts of Zimbabwe, and some parts of Mozambique and South Af-
rica. Also, as part of the Shona family of languages which-language
(Shona) is spoken, read and written by almost 80 % of Zimbabweans,
communicating in Ndau is as good as communicating in Shona. Be-
cause, except for a few words, all the Shona speaking people can under-
stand Ndau and the same with Ndau speaking people, they can under-
stand all other dialects that constitute Shona. In relation to this, is an-
other historical fact; everybody in Zimbabwe at least among the young
generation speaks Shona or at least can read and understand Shona.
That means even the 15 or so % Ndebele speaking people and some
minority groups can be part of the conversation. But why not use the
English version of the Bible, which can equally communicate to all the
Zimbabweans without any problems? After all, English is the official
language in Zimbabwe. To address this question, I am going to spring to
the third assumption why Mahoso appealed to the vernacular Bible and
not any other.
Dr Tafataona Mahoso hails from Chimanimani which may suggest that
he speaks Ndau as his first dialect and that he belongs to United Baptist
Church, the most dominant Christian denomination in this area. This
church is known to have maintained its ‘Ndau ness’ even as it moved to
other places where Ndau is not well represented. Although it is a mis-
sionary church, in a way, United Baptist Church has been made local.
From that perspective Mahoso’s reference to the Ndau version could
have been unconscious, but a reflection of whom he is. Could there be
another reason apart from these, why Mahoso cites the Ndau version?
Yes, there is.
For me, while all the other assumptions above are important and possi-
bilities, Mahoso’s reference to the Bible especially a vernacular version is