Rwanda now has a diverse range of official languages. Although Kinyarwanda, the Bantu languages and the nation’s mother tongue, are spoken by more than 99% of Rwandans, the country also has French, English, and Swahili as official languages

More than 12 million people, mostly in Rwanda but also in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania to a lesser extent, speak the Bantu languages. The Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family includes the Bantu languages as a subgroup. The Rundi language of Burundi has close ties to Rwanda

The German empire colonized and indirectly ruled Ruanda-Urundi (today’s Rwanda and Burundi) between 1899 and 1918. The German language depended on local authorities, so it never really spread

In 1923, Belgium added Ruanda-Urundi as the seventh province of the Belgian Congo following the conclusion of World War I. The League of Nations gave the order for this to be done. The central government designated French as the official language. Flemish, the language most commonly spoken in Belgium, was primarily used by local missionaries and officials. The 1962 constitution established French and Kinyarwanda as official languages following independence

Government announcements are made in Kinyarwanda when addressing domestic audiences, while those addressing the Francophone community are made in English when the topic is international. Additionally, city dwellers typically have a slightly better command of English due to their greater exposure to foreigners and English-language media than rural residents

The survival of Kinyarwanda and Swahili, as well as Rwanda’s dual allegiance to the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and the Commonwealth, are the main causes of this far from complete shift to an entirely English environment

Local trends

Looking ahead, things might continue to change Kinyarwanda continued to serve as the common language over the years. Parallel to this, recent pressures from the east are reviving Swahili both within and outside of its conventional military, Muslim, and business circles

African Union and East African Community rules encourage the use of Swahili in official documents. Additionally, Rwanda asked Tanzania to send Swahili teachers so that it could become a primary subject in schools

The status of Swahili is growing in the center that Rwanda has become thanks to infrastructure projects connecting the Swahili-speaking area, which includes Eastern DR Congo, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and Mombasa in Kenya