Zimbabwe
Waiting for the first voice
تا مرد سخن نگفته باشد / عیب و هنرش نهفته باشد
Until a man has spoken, his faults and his gifts both stay hidden.
No advice from here yet. Know an elder from this country? Your recording could be the first: 2–3 minutes on a phone.
Did you know
The name Zimbabwe comes from the Shona dzimba dzemabwe, “houses of stone”, symbolised today by the Great Zimbabwe ruins. (source)
Elders in numbers
- of people are 65 or older
- 3.6%
- people aged 65 or older
- 603.7K
- will be 65 or older in 2050
- 5.3%
- is how long people live after 60, on average
- 14.9 years
- of people 65+ live alone
- 11.1%
- women 12.2%, men 9.7%
- of people 65+ live in collective quarters: care homes, hospitals, hostels and the like
- 1.1%
Sources: World Bank, 2025; World Bank projection for 2050; WHO, 2023; UN, 2019; UN, 2012 census
Languages
26 languages, 8 of them endangered
- DombeDefinitely endangered
- NambyaDefinitely endangered
- Northern TshwaDefinitely endangered
- ShuaDefinitely endangered
- BirwaVulnerable
- HoloholoVulnerable
- KuhaneVulnerable
- KundaVulnerable
- Afrikaans
- American Sign Language
- Chewa
- Kalanga
Show all 26
- Lozi
- Manyika
- Ndau
- Northern Ndebele
- Nsenga
- Nyungwe
- Shona
- Tawara
- Tonga
- Tsonga
- Tswa
- Tswana
- Venda
- Zimbabwe Sign Language
Languages and their status: Glottolog v5.3, CC BY 4.0. Names: Wikidata.
UNESCO intangible heritage
- Art of crafting and playing Mbira/Sansi, the finger-plucking traditional musical instrument in Malawi and Zimbabwe2020
- Mbende Jerusarema dance2008
List and years: ich.unesco.org
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