Swahili vs. English in Tanzania and the political discourse

This paper deals with the role of Swahili and English in Tanzania. It gave examples of current language use illustrated by written records of middle class people’s verbal interaction. On the strength of the evidence given in the paper it is safe to say that English is advancing and regaining lost grounds. Simultaneously, Swahili is stagnating as long as there is no active Swahili promotion campaign which focuses on the implementation of the language policy formulated after Independence. For the time being, the market forces dictated by foreign companies and a pro-Western political establishment go for a growing role of English in Tanzania. These forces do not care about the Tanzanian people that have only limited access to English in an inefficient education system and are incompetent in this language. This pro-English trend is going to make many Tanzanians step by step to “linguistic strangers” (de Cluver 1993) in their own country.