as early as 1960, african nationalist political organisations in rhodesia agreed that the country should use the name "zimbabwe"; they used that name as part of the titles of their organisations. the name "zimbabwe", broken down to "dzimba dzamabwe" in shona (one of the two major languages in the country), means "houses of stone". meanwhile, the white rhodesian community was reluctant to drop the name "rhodesia", hence a compromise was met.