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Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions of people in the five African Great Lakes countries (Kenya, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania), where it is an official or national language. It is also the first language for many people in Tanzania, especially in the coastal regions of Tanga, Pwani, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi.
After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, selected one language, generally the former Indo-European colonial language, to be used in government and education. However, in recent years, African countries have become increasingly supportive of maintaining linguistic diversity.
Contemporary East African countries also hold conflicting opinions on Standard Swahili: some see it as a colonial construct that foreign governments forced upon them, others prefer English as a medium for schooling (even in Tanzania where Swahili is the language of the Parliament, English dominated in secondary and tertiary education), yet many ...
Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognized language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that ...
Central African Republic: French & Sango (both official) [2] and 50 other African languages. Chad: French and Arabic (both official) [3] + more than 100 African languages. Democratic Republic of the Congo: French (official) + Lingala, Kongo, Swahili & Tshiluba (national languages) [4] + 238 other languages.
The two official languages of Kenya, Swahili and English, are widely spoken as lingua francas; however, including second-language speakers, Swahili is more widely spoken than English. [1] Swahili is a Bantu language native to East Africa and English is inherited from British colonial rule .
Swahili is the lingua franca of Southeast Africa and the national language of Kenya and Tanzania in addition to being one of the languages of the African Union. [ 4 ] [ 39 ] Estimates of the number of speakers vary greatly but are usually around 50, 80 and 100 million people. [ 40 ]
The Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region. [5] It also serves as a national or official language of five nations in the region: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.