EAC, eager to use French in the Community

An EAC meeting will be held this April 2014 to analyse if French can officially be used in the community. Some EAC Citizens find it is a good opportunity while others note that it is a great challenge.-Diane Uwimana

Jean Bicamumpaka: “French helps us to develop more relations with people of French speaking Countries.”©Iwacu

“French is always a challenge for EAC citizens since most of the population from the Anglophone countries do not know any basic French unlike francophones who can express themselves in English,” underlines Collins Kinanja, a Kenyan who lives in Burundi.

Therefore, he states that people coming to Burundi with the knowledge of English and Swahili can actually encounter a total communication breakdown depending on the formality or nature of their business.

However, Kinanja indicates that French both presents advantages and disadvantages. “On one hand, English speakers will strive to learn the French language for the sake of convenience and the disadvantage on the other hand, is that it will take a long time to fully integrate it within the community,” points out Kinanja.

Kinanja notices that both French and English languages should be made mandatory and be integrated at the elementary level in the Education system of the respective countries within the community. Therefore, Burundians should make effort to learn English and Swahili in order to avoid any language barrier within the EAC region.

“There isn’t any disadvantage of using any language”

Jean Bicamumpaka, a Rwandan, finds that the use of French in EAC presents many advantages. “In some cases, we often meet many francophone people in EAC. In other cases, French helps us to develop more relations with people of French speaking countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Central Africa, European Countries…

So, it is important to use French in our community to expand our business with French speakers. There isn’t any disadvantage of using any language”. Daudi Indeje, from Kenya, has no fear and confirms that competition will be engaged between languages. “It will take time because French will be a minor language and English followed by Swahili will take more precedence”, he surely states. But according to him, it will mean that many people from French Speaking countries will lead EAC, EALA and other institutions from EAC because they will use French at ease.

It is worth mentioning that the Ministers Council meeting of this April 2014 will study modalities of including the French language in the Community as directed by the 15th ordinary Summit of the EAC Heads of States.