EAST AFRICAN COMMON LANGUAGE NEEDED

EAST AFRICAN COMMON LANGUAGE NEEDED

The recent opening of the East African Common Market (EACM) was welcomed with pleasure by the business communities in the five East African Countries. Inorder for the common market to benefit all people in the region, there is need for an urgent common language. There is no way business transactions can successfully be conducted in the region without a common language.

At the moment, there is an obvious lack of a common language in East Africa. Kenyans and Tanzanians speak Swahili as their national languages. Uganda speaks English as its official language. Rwanda and Burundi are just switching from French to English. On the whole, there is no common language that can be used among the business community. The implication is that illiterate business men and women in Uganda who can not speak English and Swahili will continue conducting business in other countries with difficulty. In the same vein, Rwandans and Burundians who can only speak French will find it difficult to conduct business in other East African countries where French is not spoken.

Job seekers will also find it difficult to secure jobs in those countries whose language spoken they do not understand. Whereas a Kenyan social worker is able to work in the remote village in Tanzania due to the shared Swahili language, a social worker from Burundi may find it difficult to secure a job in a remote village in Karamoja because there is no common language share by Uganda and Burundi. Such a job requires interacting with people at the grassroots who may not have knowledge of the language of elite. In the absence of a common language therefore, some East African countries will work and develop together closely, while others will be left isolated due to lack of a common language. We can not forget the fact that a language is a unifying factor for development. Language for example has enhanced the unification of German and perhaps accelerated the country’s development. Every developed country including Japan, USA, France, China, U.K and Russia has a common language spoken by every one; not just a reserve of the elite as it is, in most East African countries.   It is therefore important to fast track an East African language by following the following strategies.

·         An agreement should be reached among the East African countries as to which language should be adopted as official. This language should be taught right from pre-primary education. It should be part of the curriculum and made compulsory at all levels of education. Governments should consider teaching such a language to adults through adult education programmes. The language should be easy to learn by an average person. For example, I have seen people speaking Swahili language learnt in a period of two months. But it is hard to learn English in such a period.

·         Media houses should be encouraged to start programmes geared at training people in such a language. A documentary on farming presented on TV in Swahili for example can enable people to grasp the language easily. This is because, you compare and interpret what you have heard and viewed. Attractive magazines with Swahili explanatory notes can entice the population to see and read as they learn the language.

·         Governments in East Africa should allocate budgets to enable the planning, implementation and constant evaluation of the progress of the proposed language.

·         Members of the East African Legislative Assembly should work with their national parliaments to ensure that every effort is made to teach people of the East African Community one common language. Emphasis should be put on proper coordination and regular information sharing to ensure that this succeeds before the East African Political Federation (EAPF) is achieved.

EVEREST TURYAHIKAYO

Human Resource Specialist-

Kampala

+256-772924158