AU Summit Uses Swahili for the First Time

Swahili, a lingua franca popular in most of east and central Africa, went into use for the first time as one of the official languages when the African Union summit began in Addis Ababa on Thursday. The other official languages used by the AU are English, French, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish.

Swahili, also known as Kiswahili, was endorsed two years ago as one of the official languages by the AU Commission.

Swahili is an official language in Kenya and Tanzania and is widely spoken as lingua franca in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Spoken by tens of millions of Africans, it is also widely studied in African and foreign universities.

Addressing the AU Executive Council in Addis Ababa this week, AU Commission chairperson Alpha Omar Konare said Africa should promote its languages to avoid an identity crisis in the continent.

“We should promote local languages of Africa to be spoken widely among our nations. Africa is rich in languages and we all should speak and promote these languages. Kiswahili is an African language, which needs to be promoted and spoken by Africans,” he said.

He said Kiswahili is “a pan African language of tomorrow.”

Delegates attending the summit told APA that it was an encouraging start for AU to promote its languages for its officials work.

“Yes, we all should promote this language to be an African identity. We are really happy to see Kiswahili used in this summit,” said Leake Mekuria.

Over 2,000 languages are spoken in Africa and it is feared that hundreds of them will disappear unless they are promoted.

Source African Press Agency

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