Vol. 35 No. 2 (2026): Nordic Journal of African Studies
General articles

Rwandans’ Attitudes Towards Swahili: An Occupational Perspective

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Gregoire Mbonankira
University of Rwanda
Alfred Buregeya
University of Nairobi
Bio
Zipporah Otiso
University of Nairobi
Bio

Published 2026-06-25

Keywords

  • language attitudes,
  • Swahili,
  • occupations,
  • Rwanda

Copyright (c) 2026 Gregoire Mbonankira, Alfred Buregeya, Zipporah Otiso

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Rwandans’ Attitudes Towards Swahili: An Occupational Perspective. (2026). Nordic Journal of African Studies, 35(2), 375–396. https://doi.org/10.53228/zhadgh26

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a study examining Rwandans’ attitudes towards Swahili across different occupational groups. The study hypothesized that there would be a relationship between Rwandans’ occupations and their attitudes towards Swahili. Data were collected from 252 respondents representing six occupations: teachers, civil servants, traders, journalists, Catholic priests, and Muslim leaders. The respondents’ attitudes were elicited using a questionnaire containing ten Likert-scale statements (e.g., “Swahili is the language best suited for administration”), with responses ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. For analysis, “agree” and “strongly agree” were classified as positive, “disagree” and “strongly disagree” as negative, and “can’t tell” as neutral attitudes. A chi-square test was conducted to evaluate the hypothesis. It yielded a value of 450.5 with 10 degrees of freedom, significant at both p < .05 and p < .01, thus confirming a relationship between occupation and attitudes towards Swahili. Comparatively, 53% of overall attitudes were negative, 21% were neutral, and only 19% were positive. Traders were the only occupational group with more positive than negative attitudes towards Swahili.

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