Is Kiswahili a lingua franca?

 

A lingua franca, also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers’ native languages. (Chirikba 2008)

Lingua franca is a functional term, independent of any linguistic history or language structure.

Therefore, pidgins are lingua francas; creoles and arguably mixed languages may similarly be used for communication between language groups. But lingua franca is equally applicable to a non-creole language native to one nation (often a colonial power) learned as a second language and used for communication between diverse language communities in a colony or former colony, for example, English and French.¹

A lingua franca therefore often serves as a third language. The range of functions of the three languages acts in a complimentary way. The lingua franca comprises such fields as trade, communication, administration etc. This use becomes established, and there arises a situation of stable multilingualism. The people are able to use these languages without loss of ethnic identity or serious impairment to group membership. (Heine 1970)

Therefore, Kiswahili as such, is a lingua franca/auxiliary language/trade language/creole language which implies that it is not ethnically produced, but evolves functionally from the interaction of people from diverse language groups in their various socioeconomic activities.

Trading languages, as opposed to assimilating/colonial languages do not tend to oust languages in contact. Trading languages are indifferent to ethnics, social structure and mode of life. They are liable to expand indefinitely, as long as subsist the needs which they can satisfy, and as long as they do not collide with other languages of the same category. (Heine 1970)

References:

_{Viacheslav A. Chirikba, (2008). “The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund” in Pieter Muysken, ed., From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics, p. 31.}

_{Bernd Heine (1970). Status and use of African lingua francas. BRILL}

_{¹ Lingua Franca: Chimera Or Reality?. (2010). ISBN 9789279189876. doi: 10.2782/43158}