Swahili is all set to become one of the official languages of South Sudan and the government has requested Tanzania to send teachers equipped with the language to introduce it in school curriculum in the country.
Swahili is currently the official language of Tanzania apart from Uganda and Kenya. Rwanda too is considering making the language official soon making it fourth official language after Kinyarwanda, French and English.
South Sudanese Vice President Taban Deng Gai met Tuesday Tanzanian Vice President Samia Hassan with requests on the sidelines of African Union Summit to arrange for sending Swahili teachers to the country to support introduction of the language in school curriculum.
Taban Deng Gai also requested for assistance in several other sectors of the economy like security, agriculture and health.
Swahili is the official language for East African Community (EAC) too and South Sudan is the latest member of it.
EAC adopted the language in 2007 by the EAC. Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda too are members of the community.
Also called as Kiswahili, the Swahili is a Bantu language and widely spoken among Swahili people in African Great Lakes region and several other parts of the continent.
An estimate claims Swahili is spoken by about 50 to 100 million people and its vocabulary is derived from Arabic.
About 80 percent people in Tanzania speak Swahili and some smaller groups in Comoros, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique too talk in Swahili.
The language is written in a slightly defective alphabet of Latin script. Earlier it was written in the Arabic script.