Kalanga people

The Kalanga or BaKalanga are a southern Bantu ethnic group mainly inhabiting Matebeleland in Zimbabwe, northern Botswana, and the Limpopo Province in South Africa. The BaKalanga of Botswana are the second largest ethnic group in the country as well as the language being the second most spoken in the country, and only the most spoken in the Northern part of the country. The TjiKalanga language of Zimbabwe is the third most spoken language in the country, however, being recognized as a Western Shona branch of the Shona group of languages and is also used in news broadcasts, and on television and radio. The native language of the baKalanga has two varieties: 1) TjiKalanga, or simply Kalanga, in western Zimbabwe, 2) Ikalanga in northeastern Botswana. Together with the Nambya language, these varieties form the western branch of the shona group (Guthrie S.10) that also includes Central Shona. Kalanga-speakers once numbered over 1,700,000, though they are now much reduced, often speaking Ndebele or Central Shona languages in Zimbabwe, Tswana in Botswana, and other local languages of the surrounding peoples of southern Africa. The BaKalanga are one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in Botswana. The 1946 census indicated that there were 32,777 (40% of the numerically largest district) BaKalanga in the Bamangwato (Central) District. According to Huffman (2008), the original Bakalanga people descended from Leopard's Kopje farmers. These people occupied areas covering parts of north eastern Botswana, western and southern Zimbabwe, adjacent parts of South Africa and Mozambique by around AD 100. They traded in ivory, furs and feathers with the Indian Ocean coast for goods such as glass beads and cotton clothes. The majority of these prehistoric Bakalanga villages have been discovered in Botswana and Zimbabwe in areas close to major rivers and were usually built on terraced hilltops with stone walls built around them. The Kalanga are linked to such early African States as Mapungubgwe, Khami, and the Rozvi Empire.