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Languages in Tanzania

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The Tanzanian government has adopted a linguistic policy that makes English and Swahili as co-official languages of the country. While English is used as the language of the secondary and higher education and in the higher courts, Swahili is used in the primary and adult education as well as in social and political communication and interaction. As English provides the Tanzanian people with the ability to participate in the international economy and cultural matters, Swahili serves to unify the country of different tribes speaking their own language. This tribal language is the first language learned by a Tanzanian while both English and Swahili are learned afterwards in the school.

English is classified as Indo-European and West, and is the language of the United Kingdom of which Tanzania was once a colony, and has a worldwide population of 328 million speakers. Swahili, with an alternate name of Kiswahili, is widely spoken in the Zanzibar archipelago and the coastal areas. It is the country’s lingua franca and is understood in most parts of the country, except in the west. It is also spoken in other countries such as Burundi, Mozambique, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Libya, Somalia, Oman and Rwanda.

Among the country’s other languages are Gujarati, which is classified as Indo-Iranian and Central Zone, spoken by some 250,000 in small communities; Yao, with alternate names of Achawa, Adsawa, Ajawa or Ayawa, spoken by 420,000 in south central, Mitwara region, Massi district and Ruvuma region; and Nyamwezi, which has some 980,000 speakers in the northwest central, and Tabora region.