Today, May 21, the world marks the World Day of Cultural Diversity. At a time when there is an increasing need to preserve the cultural identity of peoples, languages are called to be part of this fight.
And it was in this sense that the Xirhonga language website (www.xizronga.org ) was created, which aims to preserve and develop this language of the southern region of the country.
The initiative was conceived and developed by the linguistic company Dumbeka Editores e Consultores, in partnership with Kaya Software, a computer company.
So far, one can find on the “site” three online applications that contain two versions of the
latest translation of the New Testament in modern and classic Xirhonga, and a trilingual dictionary (Portuguese-English-Rhonga).
According to the mentor of the initiative, the linguist and translator Armando Magaia, the xirhonga, now threatened with extinction was once the most spoken language in the cities of Maputo and Matola and the need to rescue it before it is too late is urgent.
Ronga belongs to the linguistic group known as Tsonga, or Tshwa-Ronga, which comprises three mutually intelligible languages spoken mainly in the south of the Save River in Mozambique, namely Ronga, Changana and Tshwa.
