by Daniel Onyango

Created on: April 22, 2010   Last Updated: April 23, 2010

Perhaps foreseeing a brilliant future for Swahili language, the German Africanist, Linguist and Anthropologist Diedrich Westermann had written a book in 1933 entitled ‘Swahili as the Lingua Franca of East Africa' (my emphasis) . Seven decades down the line, Swahili has surpassed his prophetic forecast. Although Ethnologue (2000) identifies only 800,000 native speakers of Swahili, mainly in East Africa (plus a few in Mozambique, DR Congo and South Africa), the true picture is much bigger than that.

The novelty of Swahili is that, though an African language(Bantu) it has borrowed widely from Arabic (35%), Persian, Portuguese, Hindi and English languages. German words such as ‘hela’ somehow found their way into the language.Swahili is not only the national language of Tanzania and Kenya, but also an official language in Uganda, DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia. Different countries have developed their distinct dialects of Swahili. For instance, apart from the mainstream dialects (Unguja, Amu, Mvita and Pemba) other dialects, such as Kingwana and Kivu Swahili (Nicolle 2003) have been spoken in Democratic Republic of Congo for years.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is a language of instruction and learning. Kiswahili classics and Literature have been taught at Kenyan and Tanzanian Universities for a number of years (Ethnologue 2000). In the case of Kenya and Tanzania, and in many parts of Eastern Africa, it is the lingua franca, with most urban centres developing their variant dialects. For example, sheng is the widespread dialect that is spoken by most young people (and older adults who started it) in Kenya. The African Union (AU) recognises its importance alongside other international languages such as English, though other African languages are equally important.

Although not much research has been done to determine this, the development and widespread use of Swahili has reached the stage where there are, arguably, second generation urban dwellers who speak only a form of Swahili as their 1st language.

Many world institutions of higher learning have for several years undertaken research and teaching of Swahili. The media too, recognising the need to reach the growing population of native Swahili speakers and the diaspora, began broadcasting in Swahili. The BBC, Radio Cairo, Voice of America (VOA), Radio Deutsch Welle (Germany), Radio Moscow, Radio Japan, South Africa and Radio China are some of the electronic media broadcasting in Swahili.

Thus,

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