Languages In Tanzania
According to Ethnologue, there are a total of 129 languages spoken in Tanzania. Of these, 126
are living and 3 are extinct. 2 of the living languages are institutional, 18 are developing, 58 are
vigorous, 40 are endangered, and 8 are dying.
Most languages spoken locally belong to two broad language families: Niger-Congo (Bantu
branch) and Nilo-Saharan (Nilotic branch), spoken by the country's Bantu and Nilotic
populations, respectively. Additionally, the Hadza and Sandawe hunter-gatherers speak
languages with click consonants, which have tentatively been classified within
the Khoisan phylum (although Hadza may be alanguage isolate). The Cushitic and Arab ethnic
minorities speak languages belonging to the separate Afro-Asiatic family, with the
Hindustani and British residents speaking languages from the Indo-European family.
Tanzania's various ethnic groups typically speak their mother tongues within their own
communities. The two official languages, English and Swahili, are used in varying degrees of
fluency for communication with other populations. According to the official national linguistic
policy announced in 1984, Swahili is the language of the social and political sphere as well as
primary and adult education, whereas English is the language of secondary education,
universities, technology, and higher courts. The government announced in 2015 that it would
discontinue the use of English as a language of education as part of an overhaul of the Tanzanian
schools system. Tanzania has two official languages, Swahili (kiSwahili) and English. Swahili,
the national language, is a composite of several Bantu dialects and Arabic that originated along
the East African coast and on the island of Zanzibar. Swahili is the lingua franca of the country,
and virtually all Tanzanians speak it. Since independence the government and other national
institutions have promoted the use of Swahili through literature, local drama, and poetry. Swahili
is also used as the medium of instruction in the first seven years of primary education.
12 Studies of labor market conditions in Western countries have indicated that there can be a
wage premium on knowledge of language. To understand this, we can follow the simple
language market model described by Carliner (1981). Imagine an economy where two languages
are spoken, A and B; there are An native speakers of A and B native speakers of B. Each worker
would prefer to work in his own native language, but will invest in the other language if he
stands to gain through a wage premium. Suppose that because A is more useful in tourism and
business, the demand for speakers of A exceeds the supply, An, when the wage for jobs requiring
A is equal to the wage for jobs requiring B (native speakers of B have no incentive to invest in
learning A). In order to reach equilibrium, the wage for A jobs must rise until enough B-speakers
learn language A to bring supply up to demand. Therefore, there is a wage premium on language
A relative to language B. Through observation and conjecture alone, the situation in urban
Tanzania seems to roughly mirror this simple language model. There is a relatively high demand
for English and there are very few fluent speakers, whereas the supply of fluent Swahili speakers
is sufficient to meet the demand (I use fluent here rather than native because Swahili is the
second language for most Tanzanians, but is usually spoken with native-speaker proficiency).
Because of the low supply of and high demand for English speakers, there is most likely a
significant wage premium on English. It is even possible that language markets in Tanzania are
not currently at equilibrium; the supply of competent English speakers may not actually equal
demand even at relatively high wages. In a survey of the relationship between language and
wages, Barry Chiswick and Paul Miller (1995).
of the other two families. This multitude of languages reflects India's lengthy and diverse history.
During the last few thousand years, the Indian sub-continent has been both united under various
empires as well as fragmented into many small kingdoms. This has helped spread many common
linguistic features among Indian languages without allowing any particular language to become
overwhelmingly dominant. Having attained independence from the British in 1947, Indian
leaders chose Hindi as the official language of India in the hope that it would facilitate regional
communication and encourage national unity. They were aware of many of the difficulties
inherent with instating a single language in India's multilingual environment, and they
accordingly laid out a clear timeline and plan for introducing Hindi and phasing English out.
Despite this planning, Hindi and English today still share their status as official languages. This
is due to many unseen obstacles in addition to tactical errors made by some of the promoters of
Hindi. These errors led to forceful counteractions by groups who felt that Hindi was being
imposed upon them.
Education Policy after Independence
Having gained independence from the British in 1947, the leaders of the new Indian nation
recognized the opportunity to unite the many regions of India with a common, universal
language. Mahatma Gandhi felt that this was essential to the emergence of India as a bona
fide nation. He pointed out five requirements for any language to be accepted as the national
language:
1. It should be easy to learn for government officials.
2. It should be capable of serving as a medium of religious, economic, and political
intercourse throughout India.
3. It should be the speech of the majority of the inhabitants of India.
4. It should be easy to learn for the whole of the country.
5. In choosing this language, considerations of temporary or passing interests should not
count. (Das Gupta 1970, p.109)
The task of the Indian government was an important but difficult one-not only because choosing
the link language was a controversial task, also but because it would be difficult to get the public
to accept any particular language. Starting years before independence, Gandhi tirelessly
supported Hindustani, which is a kind of compromise between Hindi and Urdu, as the best
choice for a national language. However, after the partition and the subsequent emigration of
millions of Muslims, Hindu leaders in Congress saw little need for Gandhi's concessions to the
Muslims. They accordingly focused on Hindi and left Urdu and Hindustani to their own fates.
Though it did not have an assured dominance over the other languages in India, Hindi seemed
the clearest choice from the beginning. English, despite its prominence and somewhat even
distribution throughout the nation, was unacceptable for several reasons. As the language of the
colonial power which had just been ousted, English was to many a "symbol of slavery" (Nayar
1967, p.12). According to Ralph Fasold (1988, p. 182), "the former colonial language is an
absolutely atrocious choice as a national language. Nothing could be a worse symbol of a new
nation's self-awareness than the language of a country from which it had just achieved
independence." More importantly, a foreign tongue such as English would not contribute to the
national identity in the way that an indigenous one could (see T15.E1).
English also had few speakers-only about one percent of India's population. Hindi claimed the
greatest number of speakers of all the Indian languages, and it was closely related to several of
the other most widely spoken ones. Though it was unrelated to the south Indian languages, it was
also thought that Hindi would not be entirely foreign to south Indians because of the strong
Sanskrit influence it shared with the four main Dravidian languages. Whether or not this thinking
was correct, Hindi was chosen as the official language amidst Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's
assurance that it would never be imposed on people in non-Hindi areas.
References
http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/582817/Tanzania/281808/Languages
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Tanzania
www.ethnologue.com/country/TZ
qz.com/.../tanzania-dumps-english-as-its-official-language-in-schools-opt
users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/Country%20Greetings%20Tanzania.htm
www.jstor.org/stable/1157997
http://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/linguistics/2007_sa_eleuthera.p
df
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~jason2/papers/natlang.htm
Journals
Language Policy for Education and Development in Tanzania Eleuthera Sa
Swarthmore College
Abdulaziz, M. H. Tanzanias National Language Policy and the Rise of Swahili
Political Culture. Language Use and Social Change. Ed. W. H. Whiteley. London:
Oxford University Press, 1971.
Alidou, Hassan. Medium of Instruction in Post-Colonial Africa. Medium of
Instruction Policies. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
Batibo, H. M. English language teaching and learning in Tanzanian primary
schools. Language in Education in Africa: A Tanzanian Perspective. Ed.
Reconciling Linguistic Diversity: The History and the Future of Language Policy in India
Jason Baldridge University of Toledo Honors Thesis ,August 1996