Fortune, G. (George), 1915-

George Fortune was born in Great Britain in 1915. After receiving a Ph.D. in Bantu Languages from the University of Cape Town in 1950, Fortune was appointed lecturer within that Department. In 1962, he became the first chair of the Department of African Languages at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now the Department of African Languages and Literatures at the University of Zimbabwe), a position which he retained until 1980. He currently lives in Wales.

Fortune has conducted extensive research and written widely on Central and Southern African languages for over fifty years. His writings concerning the Shona language were crucial to the development of a standard Shona orthography, and texts such as Elements of Shona are regarded as canonical. Fortune also played a key role in establishing African linguistics as a field of study at African universities. Later in his career, Professor Fortune became very much involved in supporting the publication of Shona literature, such as praise poetry, modern poetry, and traditional stories (see Hodza and Fortune 1979, Fortune 1980). Fortune made an important contribution to the advancement and recognition of vernacular Shona literature, and worked extensively with several writers, such as A.C. Hodza and J.C. Kumbirai, who published with the Southern Rhodesia African Literature Bureau.

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