The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) has welcomed the declaration by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to adopt Kiswahili as its fourth official language of communication.
This means Kiswahili becomes the first indigenous language to be used by the bloc as an official language at inter-state level. Existing official languages of SADC currently are English, Portuguese and French.
Kiswahili will be adopted at the level of Council and Summit, first as a language for oral communication, before eventually being adopted for written official communication within SADC.
“This milestone achievement towards recognition and elevation of indigenous African languages across the SADC region forms part of the greater effort in ensuring development, usage and intellectualisation of our heritage languages,” PanSALB chairperson of the Board, Dr David Maahlamela said in a statement on Tuesday.
The decision to adopt Kiswahili was announced at the recent 39th Ordinary Summit of the Heads of State and Government of SADC, which took place in Tanzanian at Julius Nyerere International Centre.
