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of deliberately miseducating their [central and southern region] students in order
to give northern children an unfair advantage; they were removed from their
64
positions and relocated in northern schools’. Moreover, Kamuzu Banda defined
65
Chewa to include most ethnic groups in southern Malawi including the Lomwe.
Thus, he was able to establish a cultural link between the central and southern
regions excluding the northern region. In contrast, most missions emphasized that
the Tumbuka and Chewa were allied people, culturally and linguistically.

Conclusion
This paper examined missionaries' activities and efforts at reducing vernacular
languages into its written forms in colonial Malawi. The paper shows that religion
and literacy were intimately linked. Most importantly, the paper indicates that
missionaries homogenised vernacular languages and that the choice to classify the
local languages as language and dialect, had both social and political
consequences. The paper suggests that written languages acted as a unifying factor
during the fight for independence since the availability of regional languages
facilitated communications between different groups.

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64 Kaspin, 485.
65 Kaspin, 486.