As South Sudan embraces Chinese, AU makes Swahili mandatory
The African Union (AU) has adopted Swahili as the sixth official language of the continent and made it compulsory for member states.
During the 35th ordinary session of the AU summit held in Ethiopia, Swahili was adopted as the working communication language extended to the entire continent.
In a statement seen by The City Review, the assembly said the decision must be implemented by member states in the next five months.
“The assembly urged the African Union Commission to take all the necessary measures to implement this decision by July 2023,” the statement read partly.
Initially, the African Union had five working languages including English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Spanish. Swahili becomes the sixth working language of the continental bloc.
Blow for South Sudan
The decision by the AU comes as a linguistic blow for member states like South Sudan where Swahili is not widely spoken and excluded from the official languages.
Ironically, South Sudan is a member of the East African Community where Swahili is widely spoken. But since joining the bloc, the country struggled to make linguistic adjustments to fit in the regional bloc.
In 2017, the South Sudanese government requested Tanzania to send Swahili teachers to the country as it was on the verge of introducing the language in the school curriculum ahead of its adoption as an official language.
The request was made by the then Vice President Taban Deng Gai on the sidelines of the African Union to Samia Hassan, Tanzania’s Vice President at the time according to The Citizen.
In 2019, South Sudan and Tanzania signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Tanzania’s government was represented Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Professor Joyce Ndalichako, while South Sudan’s Minister of Education, Deng Deng Hoc Yai, represented Juba in Dodoma City, Tanzania.
The five-year deal meant Tanzania would be sending Kiswahili teachers to Africa’s newest nation.
However, the implementation has stalled thanks to political upheavals at the time. But even when South Sudan is enjoying relative peace, the plan seems far from resuscitation.
Chinese language
In a surprising twist of events, South Sudan has embraced Chinese. In 2021, some of the Chinese medical team in South Sudan launched a Medical Chinese Language Course at the Juba Teaching Hospital (JTH) “to help ease communication between the South Sudanese medical staff and their Chinese counterparts.” This programme was opened to any South Sudanese willing to learn Chinese, which is not among the official languages of EAC or AU.
