Language policy in Tanzania

The strongest argument for the promotion of Swahili as the national language of Tanzania was the political one. In an interview on 12 August 1968 Nyerere told that his ultimate aim was that every citizen of Tanzania should be bilingual in the sense that they could speak Swahili and English. Before independence Swahili was pre-eminently the expression of an Islamic culture. Its secondary use was as a lingua franca. Both these functions have after independence been subordinated to making Swahili not only the expression of a newly created African culture, but also an important mediun for achieving the new culture. The direction in which Swahili is moving is towards an approximation of English expression and idiom and thought. The Education Department in Dar es Salaam is committed to a vast programme of development in the teaching of Swahili. The future of Swahili in Tanzania is closely bound up with the fulfilment of the President’s aim to build a truly African nation in which at every level preference is given to a truly African means of expression. French summary.