History Of Tanzania

Tanzania officially the United Republic of Tanzania (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa

Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered
by Kenya and Uganda to the north; Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo to the west; Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south; and the Indian Ocean to the
east. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania.
Tanzania's population of 44.9 million is highly diverse, composed of numerous ethnic, linguistic,
and religious groups. Tanzania is a presidential constitutional republic, and since 1996, its
official capital has been Dodoma, where the President's Office, the National Assembly, and some
government ministries are located. Dar es Salaam, the former capital, retains most government
offices and is the country's largest city, principal port, and leading commercial center.
European colonialism began in mainland Tanzania during the late 19th century when Germany
formed German East Africa, which gave way to British rule following World War I. The
mainland was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate
colonial jurisdiction. Following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities
merged in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania.
At 947,303 square kilometres (365,756 sq mi),[ Tanzania is the 13th largest country in Africa and
the 31st largest in the world, ranked between the larger Egypt and smaller Nigeria.

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.

Differences in education policy

1 Tanzania and Ethiopia are the only
countries on the continent to use national
languages rather than colonial ones
throughout the primary school system.
2 Swahili is used in primary education.
3 English is the medium of instruction at
the secondary and post-secondary levels.
4 When the British government took over
administration of German East Africa
following World War I, Swahili was
preserved as the language of instruction
in the first five years of primary school,
but the medium in last three years of
primary and all of secondary school was
switched to English.

In 1954 the Tanganyika African National

Union (TANU), the political party that
fought for independence from British
rule, used Swahili as a tool for uniting the
different ethnic groups it sought to
represent (Rubagumya 1990)
The Ministry of Education released an
official, if vague, statement in 1984:
Both languages, English and Kiswahili,
will be used as media of instruction.
English will be improved at all levels of
education (Wizara ya Elimu 1984:

THE MARKET VALUE OF LANGUAGE

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).

ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH

Is English really important enough to the average Tanzanian to justify significant spending to
improve English education in government schools? In an article on language and economic
development, Bruthiaux (2000: 287) argues that What is striking both in research findings and
in anecdotal evidence is how relatively few individuals in most developing societies (including
former British colonies such as India) ever come into contact 15 with English or have any
immediate need for it in their day-to-day life. It is likely true that the demand for English in
rural Tanzania is much lower than in urban centers such as Dar es Salaam and Arusha, where
tourism and business thrive. To the average child living in a rural village, the labor market
opportunities of the city may seem impossibly distant. Nonetheless, many urban dwellers of
working age do come from rural areas: Every young adult I knew well in Dar es Salaam had
grown up in a small, rural village and only moved to the city after either graduating or leaving
school. Young adults in particular often migrate from rural to urban areas in search of better
opportunities. It seems unjust to deny rural children the skills they would need if they chose to
set out for the city simply because the vast majority of them will not do so. Why promote social
and geographic immobility? On the other hand, perhaps it is unwise to devote resources to
developing a skill so remote from so vast a majority of the population.

History of Indian languages

With over 900 million people and more than one thousand languages, India is certainly one of
the multilingual nations in the world today. It is home to the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language
families, two of the world's largest. Languages of the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman
language families are also spoken in India, though by relatively few people compared to speakers

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.

C. M. Rubagumya. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 1990. Brock-Utne, Birgit. The

Continued Battle over KiSwahili as the Language of Instruction in Tanzania.
Languages of Instruction for African Emancipation. Dar es Salaam: Mkuti Na Nyota,
2005.

Reconciling Linguistic Diversity: The History and the Future of Language Policy in India
Jason Baldridge University of Toledo Honors Thesis ,August 1996