Rwandan English

Our research in Uganda has brought us into contact with many Rwandans and, eventually, resulted in visits to Rwanda too. For English linguistics, Rwanda presents a case similar to Namibia. It never had a history of British control but was a German colony from 1898 then a Belgian League of Nations mandate (1916-1945) and later a Belgian administered UN trust territory (1945-1962), with French used as the official language from 1930, and maintained as such, co-official with Kinyarwanda, at independence in 1962.

While English did not play a role during colonial times, it has been taught as a school subject at all levels of education since the1960s, and its uses expanded widely after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Constitution of 2003 stipulates Kinyarwanda, which is spoken by 99% of Rwanda’s population, as the national and French and English as the official languages. The latter choice was made to accommodate the linguistic needs of those Rwandans who had had to migrate to either Francophone or Anglophone neighbouring countries. Motivated by various political, economic and social factors, Rwanda replaced French with English as the sole medium of instruction from grade four of primary school onwards in 2008, thus establishing it firmly as a second language, particularly for its younger citizens.

Together with colleagues in Uganda and Rwanda, we have set out to investigate the uses of English in the country and to describe how English is shaped by both Kinyarwanda and French and how it is (dis)similar to other Englishes in East Africa.