Why Tanzania Made Swahili Their National Language

With over 200 million first- and second-language speakers, Kiswahili, or just Swahili, is Africa’s most spoken and internationally recognized language. The Bantu language is an official or national language in most East African countries as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). However, the use of Swahili is most prominent in Tanzania, where it is not just the national language but also the language of public administration and instruction in educational institutions.

Swahili was chosen as a national language after Tanganyika gained independence from the British in December, 1961. As part of his fight to usher in a new era for Tanganyika, President Julius Nyerere ordered that Swahili be used in all levels of government, courts and primary schools in place of the colonizer’s language. At the time, this made Tanganyika one of only two African countries (besides Ethiopia with Amharic) to make an indigenous language the official language of communication. Swahili was also promoted as the primary medium of communication in trade and art.

Nyerere created a socialist ideology called Ujama, meaning ‘fraternity’ in Swahili, that served as the basis of national development for the newly independent state. Ujamaa underpinned unity and equality for all citizens through a system of cooperative economics. It was on this same basis of unity that Nyerere championed the use of Swahili not just in Tanganyika, but also throughout East Africa. To him, a common African language was integral to the Pan-Africanism movement, as it was more authentic to the cultural identity of the people than the White Man’s language could ever be. Thus, he used Swahili to evoke a sense of cultural nationalism amongst the masses and trump the perceived neo-colonialist influence of the English language.

Moreso, during the independence movement, freedom fighters—of which Nyerere was part—used Swahili as a sort of language of collaboration and even defiance. Irrespective of their various native tongues, they communicated with each other in Swahili, thereby expressing a form of solidarity.

Swahili is so important and central to the modern state of Tanzania that organizations have been created therein for its promotion and regulation. Just a year before the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar finally became the United Republic of Tanzania in 1965, Taasi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI), meaning Institute of Swahili Research, was formed. By 1970, TUKI would be merged with the University of Dar es Salaam and essentially replaced by the more comprehensive Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (BAKITA), an institution dedicated to the development and advocacy of Swahili as a tool for national integration in Tanzania.

Although there are several different dialects of Swahili, BAKITA is the global authority on Swahili as it defines the standard language and determines whether new vocabularies can be officially adopted. Thus, Tanzanians are largely responsible for shaping the modern Swahili language. Additionally, over 90% of Tanzanians speak standard Swahili, even though there are over 120 ethnic groups with their own distinct languages in the country.

It is however important to note that while Swahili has largely been successful in fostering unity in Tanzania, it has not been without its hitches. First off, the abrupt switch from Swahili to English as the medium of instruction between primary and secondary schools has been far from seamless. Students often grapple with the newfound language barrier and do not perform as well as they used to. Some even mix the two languages in a form of pidgin called ‘Kiswengli’ in order to communicate. This problem discouraged the idea of making Swahili the medium of instruction in secondary schools too. Furthermore, as far back as the 90s, the Tanzanian public decried how ‘Swahilization’ policies had isolated them from the rest of the world as an inability to properly communicate in English hampered international business relations.

Still, the positive impact of Nyerere’s promotion of Swahili are incontestable and far-reaching. In the late 60s, African American freedom fighter, Maulona Karenga followed Tanzania’s example by adopting Swahili as the official language of their own black freedom movement. Karenga also created the Kwanzaacelebration, taken from the Swahili word ‘ku-anza’ which means ‘first’ or ‘to begin’. Till today, many African-Americans still celebrate Kwanzaa, as a way of paying homage to their African roots and struggle for freedom.

Kenya’s President Jomo Kenyatta also took a page from Nyerere’s book by declaring Swahili as the national language in 1970. By 1971, Kenyatta expected that Swahili would be used by all Kenyans ‘whether officially or unofficially, politically or socially’, and in 1974, he again declared Swahili as a parliamentary language. Only higher educational institutions were exempt from Kenyatta’s Swahilization orders as the government acknowledged the value of English in global communications.

In 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated July 7 as World Kiswahili Language Day. The following year, African Union (AU) decided to adopt Swahili as an official working language.