Swahilization or Swahilisation refers to one of two practices: * the cultural assimilation of local peoples in Southeast Africa into the

Swahili people The Swahili people ( sw, WaSwahili) comprise mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab and Comorian ethnic groups inhabiting the Swahili coast, an area encompassing the Zanzibar archipelago and mainland Tanzania's seaboard, littoral Kenya, northern Mozambique, ...

and their culture. * the post-independence promotion of the

Swahili language Swahili, also known by its local name , is the native language of the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent litoral islands). It is a Bantu language, though Sw ...

by the governments of Southeast African former colonies as a national and official language, alongside a greater cultural assimilation policy of

Africanization Africanization or Africanisation (lit., making something African) has been applied in various contexts, notably in geographic and personal naming and in the composition of the civil service via processes such as indigenization. Africanization ...

(see

Julius Nyerere Julius Kambarage Nyerere (; 13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian anti-colonial activist, politician, and political theorist. He governed Tanganyika as prime minister from 1961 to 1962 and then as president from 1962 to 1964, af ...

and ''

Ujamaa Ujamaa ( in Swahili) was a socialist ideology that formed the basis of Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania after it gained independence from Britain in 1961. More broadly, ujamaa may mean "cooperative economic ...

''). Swahili was the language spoken throughout the coastal tribes of Eastern Tanzania before the arrival of the European settlers. During the 1800s, the slave trades led by Arab merchants led Swahili to become a 50% derivative from Arabic. In the 1960s, the new republic of Tanzania replaced all English education content in elementary schools by Swahili content in a move to erase the colonial past of the country. The middle schools and up were supposed to do the same by the year 2000.

, who initiated this policy, translated himself

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''Julius Caesar'' and ''

The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Although classified as ...

'' in Swahili. This trend was also picked up in the USA, favored by the rise of the Black Power movement. By the 1990s, the Swahilization of the Tanzanian education system did not really happen, English remaining a dominant academic language, and many reforms were abandoned. In the country's justice courts, trials were led in Swahili but the archives were maintained in English. The mix of Swahili and English in the country's spoken languages was called ''Kiswengli'' (Kiswahili-English). On a scholar level, many scientific words do not exist in the Swahili language. By the 1990s, 8,000 new Swahili technical words were introduced, but ill-spread throughout the academic system. The Swahilization of the country may have isolated it from the international marketplace during the 1970s and 1980s. By the early 2000s,

Kiswahili Swahili, also known by its local name , is the native language of the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent litoral islands). It is a Bantu language, though Swahili ...

started to be used intra-group in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

, a sign that the country's Swahili-based lingua franca was starting to emerge as a dominant language. 2010 studies have shown that, in

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

, Swahili became predominant in the regions that traditionally spoke Matengo.

References

Southeast Africa Swahili Cultural assimilation Swahili language {{swahili-stub