Swahili has been stirring up a bit of controversy in recent weeks, all due to a decision to make the language an optional subject at the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE). A group of scholars from Nairobi are very much against this decision. They feel that Kiswahili is the language of the East African community and given Kenya’s reputation of post election chaos and tribalism Kenya’s only uniting element is their language. The scholars mostly want to avoid any other foreign languages to develop in the country where Kiswahili has been deeply rooted for decades.

Kiswahili is not just a tool for business, it has also become political from East and Central Africa to many parts of Europe. The language has created several hundred jobs for many East and Central Africans working as university lectures. The scholars feel such a decision is not only inconceivable but unworkable at a time when the language itself is growing faster globally. Swahili has found its way from East and Central Africa to Germany, USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and many other countries.

The New York Times recently published an article entitled ‘Hungry for New Content, Google tries to Grow its own in Africa’. Google is sponsoring a contest to encourage Tanzanian and Kenyan students to create articles for the Swahili version of Wikipedia by translating them from the English version. Google reported a good response, so far almost 900 articles have been submitted by more than 800 contributors. For almost 100 million people living in East Africa Kiswahili is spoken as a second language, so converting many of the articles found on Wikipedia into Swahili is thought to be one of the only ways to reach a mass audience of people living in the region.

For the Nairobi Scholars they will continue to fight this decision and protect the Swahili language. Prof Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany head of the Research Institute of Swahili Studies of East Africa is quoted saying to Kenya National Examination Council, “We will not allow this language to be optional in schools. Those with such ideas are enemies of the language and Kenyans will not allow them to achieve that goal”.