Good news that Tanzania is setting up Kiswahili promotion and learning centres globally – article in the East African of 1st to 7th June 2024

It is good news that the Tanzanian governmentwill be setting up Kiswahili learning and promotion centres throughout the world to promote this uniquely African language with its associated culture and way of life. One of the reasons for promotion of Kiswahili is that the language has immense opportunities to foster peace, cohesion, integration, and business among African communities and also international levels. Kiswahili has a longer history of building bridges among the people in the African continent and the diaspora. The 40^th ordinary session of the African Union (AU) Executive Council held on 20^th January to 3^rd February 2022 designated Kiswahili as a working language African Union. The communique noted that the language was used as a unifier during the struggle for independence.

The origins of Kiswahili is a 2500-kilometer chain of islands on the East African coast from Mogadishu in Somalia to Sofia, in Mozambique and other offshore islands as far as Comoros and Seychelles. This coastal region that birthed Kiswahili has been for a long time an international cross road of trade and human movements. It was at this coastal region that people from places as far as United States, Indonesia, India, Persia, African great Lake’s region and Europe interacted with one another. Hunter gatherers mingled with pastoralists, traders and urban dwellers. This meeting point meant that different religions and languages had great interactions and to enhance communication and interaction, Kiswahili grew out of such a wide array of languages and speakers.

Scholars like Wole Soyinka of Nigeria among others have since 1960’s called for the use of Kiswahili as an African transcontinental language. The African Union adopted Kiswahili in 2004 as one of its official languages. Africa’s Swahili speaking zone covers a full third of the continent from North to South. Swahili is the most recognized African language outside the continent, and it is felt in many international radio and Television stations and also in the digital space. It is one of the 10 most spoken languages globally and thus can easily become as a Pan African language because it is not tied to any ethnic group.

Kiswahili, with about 200 million speakers and spread out in more than 14 countries in Africa, lacks the number of speakers, the wealth and the political power associated with powerful languages like Mandarin (the Chinese language which has been spoken for more than 3000 years, has 1.118 billion speakers globally, including being the official language in China, Singapore and Taiwan), English (1.35 billion people speak English) and Spanish (about 486 million people globally speak Spanish and it is the official language of 20 countries worldwide). Dr Giti is an urban management, public – private partnerships (PPP) and environment specialist. mutegigiti@gmail.com , @danielgiti