A growing number of second-generation Zimbabweans are turning to TikTok to teach themselves Shona, filling a gap left by parents who, often for practical reasons, prioritised English at home while raising children abroad.

The videos range from simple vocabulary drills to deep dives into proverbs and their cultural context, with several creators building audiences well into the tens of thousands — a mix of diaspora viewers relearning the language and, increasingly, non-Zimbabweans discovering it for the first time.

"My mum stopped speaking Shona to us because she was scared it would hold us back in school," said one 24-year-old creator in Sydney with over 60,000 followers. "Now I'm learning it from strangers on the internet, and honestly, teaching some of it back to her."

It's a small but telling reversal: a generation raised without the language finding their way back to it through the same platforms usually blamed for cultural erosion, not repair.