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SOCIOLOLINGUISTIC SURVEYS - Centre for Language Studies

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50. It has been observed that those who scored below 50 were non­native speakers of<br />

Chiyao.<br />

3.8 SOME GENERAL OBSERVATION AND CONCLUSIONS<br />

Historically education in Malawi was the province of the missionaries.<br />

Its primary objective was to convert the heathens to Christianity. The Yao were<br />

essentially Muslims. Statistics collected in 1928 show that there were 105,000 Muslims<br />

in the country, 95% of whom were Yao. The main centers of concentration then as now<br />

were Zomba, Machinga, Mangochi, Dedza, Dowa and Salima, while most of the non­Yao<br />

Muslims – about 4,000 in number were in Nkhotakota. It is significant to observe in the<br />

current survey that there is a correlation between being Yao and Muslim. The correlation<br />

is shown in Table 10 below.<br />

TABLE 10:<br />

RELIGION VS SPEAKING CHIYAO AS MOTHER TONGUE<br />

DENOMINATION YES NO %<br />

Catholic 55 6.4<br />

CCAP 56 6.5<br />

Seventh Day 27 3.1<br />

Islam 618 71.7<br />

Assemblies of God 9 1.0<br />

Church of Christ 3 3.8<br />

Jehovas Witness 2 0.2<br />

Anglican 5 12 2.0<br />

New Apostolic Church 5 0.6<br />

African 5 0.6<br />

Baptist 2 0.2<br />

Utopia 3 0.3<br />

Church of God 1 0.1<br />

Missing 30 3.5<br />

71.7% of the respondents claimed to be both Yao and Muslim. What is interesting here is<br />

25

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