KAARO KARUNGI | OPINION – Kiswahili is one of the languages widely spoken in eastern Africa. In Zanzibar, most communities know no other mother tongue but Kiswahili; in Tanzania and Kenya, Kiswahili is the lingua-franca. Kiswahili is also spoken extensively in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and a few communities in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.
The origin of Kiswahili is traced back several centuries to slave trade and slavery in the region. At that time, Arabs dominated several parts of the region as traders, settlers, farmers, rulers, promoters of Islam, and above all, captors, enslavers and traders of African slaves.
Places like Zanzibar, Pemba and the coastal parts of eastern Africa became hotbeds of slave trade and black enslavement, little wonder they are the heart of Kiswahili language and culture.
The word Kiswahili itself is derived from Arabic word “swahili” meaning “of the coast”. The composition of Kiswahili is 40% Arabic, and the remaining percentage comes mainly from different African languages. Other languages such as English, Portuguese, Persian, German, and French, also made significant contributions.
Since independence, Tanzania has been at the forefront of championing the use and promotion of the language. In that country, Kiswahili is the only official, national and the main language of instruction in schools. In 2015, President Jakaya Kikwete’s government introduced far-reaching reforms in education that made Kiswahili the sole language of instruction in schools.
On the external front, Tanzania’s push for Kiswahili continues to yield results. During the 39th summit of the heads of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2019 in Tanzania, President Magufuli’s plea to the leaders to adopt Kiswahili as SADC’s fourth language was accepted. While here in the East African Community (EAC), Tanzania also pushed for Kiswahili to become the bloc’s main vehicle for the integration. This compelled member countries with low levels of Kiswahili to immediately embark on efforts to popularise the Language. For instance, in 2019 in Ugandan, the cabinet approved the establishment of the Uganda National Kiswahili Council (UNKC) and changing of schools curricula to make Kiswahili compulsory in all secondary schools.
Why is Tanzania investing all these efforts and resources in Kiswahili while all her neighbours are favouring the more crucial English language? Certainly, those efforts and resources are not for nothing. There is a supposition in Tanzania that Kiswahili is the saviour that has (1) united the over 120 tribes in the country, and (2) spared them tribal conflicts that characterise life in most parts of Africa.
To them, Kiswahili is thus a special commodity they want to export to other places. By doing so, Tanzania will be regarded as a place of peace, unity and stability, hence a dream destination for investment, tourism and migration. Additionally, Tanzania also hopes to cash in on Kiswahili experts that she will export to countries that will embrace the language. Remember, it goes without saying that the more powerful your language is, the more powerful you are.
Well, although Tanzania is all smiles as her Kiswahili strategies appear to progress well, it would be wise for the targeted countries to stop for a minute and take a good look at the Tanzania’s approach and reconsider some issues regarding Kiswahili.
In all aspects, Kiswahili is not any different or special from any other African Language such as Zulu, Lingala, Luo or Igbo. They all share the same limitations: thin vocabulary, rudimentary orthography, unacademic, weak publication, not suitable for science, ICT and tourism development, and above all, incapable of connecting Africa to the rest of the world.
The widespread notion that a common language guarantees unity is simply mythical. It is difficult to prove that the prevailing stability in Tanzania is due to a common language considering that several countries that have witnessed some of the worst forms of violence share Tanzania’s common language characteristic. For instance, Rwanda witnessed genocide, Somalia degenerated into a failed state, Kenyans turned on each other in 2007, Yemen is on fire, and Syria is hell on earth, yet in all these cases, the common language phenomenon did save them.
On the one hand, Tanzania is so obsessed with Kiswahili that they stubbornly refused to invest in English believing that Kiswahili can substitute for English. On the other hand, Uganda and Rwanda are reaping huge benefits from the wise investment in the English language. In the last 20 years, Uganda has become an education dream paradise for students in the region and beyond thanks to English. Universities, secondary and primary schools in Uganda welcome thousands of foreign students from Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Burundi, Eretria, Somalia, etc seeking quality English-based education. Even Rwanda that switched to English just yesterday in 2008 is already seeing benefits of the change. Apart from becoming an ICT hub, Rwanda is attracting thousands of foreign students from Tanzania, Congo and Burundi looking for English-based curricula.
To conclude that that Kiswahili is the best enhancer of trade among East Africans in this day and age is to peddle a fallacy. It is said that numbers don’t lie. According to reliable statistics, over 80% of most countries populations bordering Tanzania like Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia speak fair English. This cannot be said of Kiswahili whose levels are as low as single digits in Uganda, South Sudan, Malawi and Zambia.
And to English language critics, English is not only a language but a key sector of development. It is the key that opens the door to crucial knowledge for development. If Africa wants to compete favourably with the rest of the world in crucial sectors like education, research, science, manufacturing, trade, tourism, and ICT, she will invest in English.
Accordingly, targeted countries such as Uganda and Rwanda should be asking themselves: between Tanzania and them, who should copy whose model? Who doesn’t see the bold writing on the wall that English, and not Kiswahili, is the best vehicle for effective integration of the East African Community? Why should the targeted countries accept to act retrogressively and switch to Kiswahili just to appease Tanzania?
Also, Tanzania should ask herself why English-speaking countries like Uganda and Rwanda are attracting thousands of her students, yet she hardly receives any from them? Why, in the region, it is only universities in English-speaking countries like Makerere in Uganda that always emerge among the ten best universities in Africa? If Kiswahili is so accomplishing, why are Tanzanian students flocking foreign schools to access English-based education? For goodness’ sake, isn’t wise that Tanzania quickly embraces English so as to bring her population into language commonality with the targeted countries?
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