Nationwide -- In recent years, Swahili has emerged as a leading language that people should take note of. With an estimated 150 million speakers worldwide, it is the official language of Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is widely spoken in Uganda and more narrowly spoken in Burundi, Rwanda, North Zambia, Mozambique, and Malawi.
Several international media outlets like BBC and The Voice of America offer programming in Swahili. In the African Union, Swahili is one of the working languages. In 2019, the Southern African Development Community adopted Kiswahili as its fourth official language. At the beginning of 2020, South Africa legalized Swahili's teaching in South African schools as an optional subject with Namibia to follow suit in 2021.
Shili Joseph Somi, a Tanzanian native, who has been in the U.S. for several years, has watched Swahili's explosive growth and evolution into a dominant language. While people globally have caught hold of the opportunities in learning Swahili, Somi believes that the African American demographic has mainly been left out of the conversations concerning the possibilities.
