The Lost Kingdom (Part 2)

Most linguists regard Ikalanga as a separate language, as opposed to dialect, from Chishona, which itself has been standardised in modern times from a variety of existing dialects, e.g. Karanga and Zezuru dialects.

Other Chishona dialects or languages notably include Korekore, Ndau and Manyika. It has been suggested by a number of linguists that early Ikalanga may have been the root language of Karanga and other Chishona dialects, but this is disputed.  Cultural antecedents of various Southern Bantu language groups in the region, including those ancestral to Bakalanga, can be linked to the emergence of early iron age civilisation in the region by the second century AD (if not earlier).