Swahili vs. English in Tanzania and the political discourse

Tanzania is one of those few African countries that have been praised for their focus on an endoglossic language policy. This policy puts emphasis on the promotion of national languages (i.e. those of African origin) with regard to status and corpus empowerment. In the case of Tanzania, Swahili has been playing the role of a language of wider distribution or lingua franca with a broad social basis for many years. It is supra-ethnic in its function, thus facilitating the verbal interaction of people regardless of their ethno-linguistic origin.