Analysts laud AU for Kiswahili adoption

ANALYSTS have praised the move by African Union (AU), to approve Kiswahili as one of the organization's working languages, saying Tanzania stands to gain in many ways from the decision.

They say besides promoting the language, the move will market Tanzania beyond the country's borders as well as fostering cultural interactions with the rest of the world.

Early this week, AU Heads of State and Government approved Kiswahili as one of the bloc's official working languages, following a request from Vice-President Dr. Philip Mpango.

At the two-day summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dr. Mpango, who represented President Samia Suluhu Hassan, suggested that Kiswahili is one of the most widely spoken languages in Africa with about 100 million people within and outside the continent.

"Kiswahili is already in use in various communities including the East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as well as a teaching language in many African countries," he said.

Also, he said the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared July 7 as the World Kiswahili Language Day.

Kiswahili is a lingua franca in the African Great Lakes region, as well as in East and Southern Africa, and this is among the reasons which has enabled the language to become the tenth most used language globally, he said.

Reacting to the latest development, a lecturer at the Centre for Foreign Relations (CFR) in Dar es Salaam, Mr. Innocent Shoo said the move has come at the right time as the government strives to make Kiswahili as a commodity that will generate income.

He said that Tanzania is bound to benefit massively - socially, economically and politically, insisting that the language which is widely spoken within the EAC, must be embraced and held high in all spheres.

Mr. Shoo said the latest AU move signifies commitment by African countries to embrace Kiswahili, which is the language of communication, trade and liberation.

He said that the decision has come at the right time, where the establishment of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will require people of the continent to speak a common language.

"The fact that Kiswahili is among three widely spoken languages in the continent will certainly help the language users understand better the opportunities arising from AfCFTA since the documents will be available in Kiswahili," he said.

Mr. Shoo added that the move will further promote Kiswahili as a language of wider communication in Africa. He said it will consequently stimulate further investment in Africa, including developing experts to translate and interpreting Kiswahili into other languages. He said the move will also send a clear message to the rest of the world that the AU wants to speak a language that they understand and that is easily accessible to the people of the continent.

Speaking with the 'Daily News' a lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), faculty of Kiswahili, Dr. Elizabeth Mahenge, said the move is commendable as it will open a new page of language development, as well as employment opportunities for the Kiswahili language users.

Dr. Mahenge said different employment opportunities such as translators will highly be in demand because Kiswahili will be the official language of the AU sessions.

"This decision will also bring with it the opportunity of translating various documents and publishing books," Dr. Mahenge said whilst challenging Tanzanians to seize the opportunities.

According to the analysts, the development milestones achieved in Tanzania within 60 years of Independence is attributed to the growth of Kiswahili language, as a key unifying factor among its citizens.

Use of a single unifying language among Tanzanians was brought about by the country's founding father, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere soon after attaining independence. Mwalimu Nyerere had foresight when he declared that Kiswahili would be the national language as soon as the country attained its independence.

Due to the unifying language, people could easily interact without having to be recognised by their ethnicity. Recently, the Deputy-Minister for Arts, Culture and Sports, Ms. Pauline Gekul, revealed that since Independence, the use of Kiswahili has massively grown from being a language of unity in Tanzania to a commodity.