Zimbabwean Street Lingo: A Beginner's Guide to Ghetto Speak

Walk through any Harare township, hop on a kombi, or scroll a Zimbabwean WhatsApp group and you will hear a version of Shona that no school ever taught. Some people call it street lingo. Others call it ghetto speak, ghetto talk or just Zim slang. Whatever the name, it is the living language of the ghetto yout, and it changes faster than any dictionary can keep up with.

This guide is a starting point. Every word below comes from the shonaslang dictionary, written by the people who actually use it. Click any word to hear it, see more examples, or add your own meaning.

What is Zimbabwean street lingo?

Street lingo is the everyday slang spoken in Zimbabwe's high-density suburbs, the ghettos, and carried from there into the rest of the country. It mixes Shona with English, flips words backwards, borrows from music and sport, and invents new words for old things.

A lot of it exists so that insiders can talk without outsiders following. A word like rizpo, which means police, is a good example: it is porisi spelled backwards, and you say it when you want the warning to travel fast without anyone else catching it. We wrote a whole piece on it: What Does 'Rizpo' Really Mean?

Other words are just fun. They are how friends show they belong to the same corner, the same crew, the same ghetto.

How do you greet someone in ghetto speak?

Greetings are the first thing you will hear, and there are many ways to ask "how are you?"

• Shaa: Hey
• Sei-sei?: How are you? / What's up?
• Wadii?: What's up? / How are you?
• Zvirisei? and Kurisei?: How are things? / How's it going?
• Zvakamirasei?: How is it going? / How's life?

"Zvakamirasei wangu?"

Translation: "How's it going my friend?"

That last word, wangu, is one of several ways to say mate or bro. You will also hear wamdhara, muface and jahman. When you are talking to the whole group, it is amana: fellas, guys.

How do you say yes, no and "that's nonsense"?

Once the greetings are done, you need to agree, refuse and dismiss.

To agree, say bho or bholato: cool, okay, fine. Add a question and it becomes bho here?, "is that cool?" Safe works the same way.

To say no, try meke or molla. If something is never going to happen, it is kuradha, and if a plan will not work, hazvibude.

And when someone is talking rubbish, you have options: washaya, dhololo or kudhomoka.

"Iwe mupfana iwe ukudhomoka ka"

Translation: "Bro you're talking nonsense"

What are the street words for money?

Money talk is where Zimbabwean slang gets really creative, and a lot of it carries history from the hyperinflation years.

• Mari, gwala, nozhi, muduso and gauro all mean money.
• Bag, chibhanzi and chidadi mean cash.
• Yusa is US dollars.
• Dhombi is $1, bhuru and waya are $100, thaza is $1000 and mita is $1M.
• Zino is your cut from a deal, and chikwembi is a debt.
• Bhidza means pay, and also recalls the Gono era billion of the hyperinflation days.

What do people call food in street lingo?

Sadza alone has a whole family of slang names: jembi, jeda, jespapa and jest.

"KwaMereki paMai Fafi vanobika jembi rakanaka"

Translation: "At Mai Fafi's stall down at Mereki they cook very good sadza"

Of course, sadza needs something on the side. That is motivation, meat or relish:

"Ini sadza risina motivation handibate"

Translation: "I can't eat sadza without meat/relish"

Meat itself is midhek, a pot of mixed fried meats is gango, and food in general is scoff.

What are the slang words for home, the rural areas and going out?

Home has plenty of names: base, den, danga and jabhuna.

"Rega ndimbosvika pabase"

Translation: "Let me get to the house"

The rural areas are mapfanya, roots, runyaz or rutseni.

"Last weekend ndakaenda kumapfanya"

Translation: "Last weekend I went to the rural area"

For a night out, you head to the bhilek or bhizo (a bar, pub or club), a shebhaz (shebeen), or a dikinya, a party.

Who's who in the ghetto?

Street lingo has a word for everyone you will meet.

• The crew is your mafia.
• A hustler is a korokoza.
• A rich person is a mhene or bhozwero, and a rich man or sugar daddy is a mbinga.
• Uptown, upper-class people are salala, salad or the nose brigade.

"Ini nemafia rangu kana tafunga kuita plan, hapana anotimisa."

Translation: "When my crew and I plan something, no one can stop us."

Getting around takes a jap or a garis, both meaning a car, and a day's hustle is your works:

"Tirikupusha maworks baba kuti zvibude."

Translation: "We are working hard to make ends meet."

How do you say something is good?

When something is great, it is faya (lit), heavy (very cool), manyama or chakanyanya (very good). When someone pulls it off, tell them zvaendwa, well done. And when the whole crew has made it: tapinda-tapinda.

How do you keep up with new street lingo?

Street lingo never sits still. Words appear in a Zimdancehall track, spread through kombis and WhatsApp statuses, and are everywhere within weeks. Some stick around for decades, like the words in Growing Up Speaking in Code. Others disappear just as fast.

That is why shonaslang is community-driven. Nobody knows ghetto speak better than the people speaking it.