Social and ethnic conflicts are recurrent phenomena affecting many countries in Africa.

Ethnicity
means identifying with, and feeling part of, a socially recognized ethnic group. It also means being
excluded from other such groups because of one’s ethnic identity. An ethnic group refers to a
particular culturally defined group in a nation or region that contains others. Ethnic distinction can
be based on language, geography and kinship. This paper attempts to discuss some social factors
particularly Kiswahili language in the process of building national identity, peace and political
stability. It discusses the development of Kiswahili language from a historical and anthropological
point of view, how the language emerged and developed in Tanzania. It will focus on some factors
such as trade, political decision and policies as well as cultural factors especially joking relationships
which among others have been contributing to the development of Kiswahili as a national language
and one of the unifying factors in Tanzania. There are other factors which facilitated the process of
national building, peace and stability in Tanzania, however, the focus of this paper will be on
Kiswahili contribution to this process. In addition, it will discuss Kiswahili development in East
Africa, and its possibilities to be an official East Africa language. At the end, the paper addresses
some challenge Tanzania is facing as far as Kiswahili as national language and its ethnic stability.

Internal and historical Factors

Tanzania is a diversified country with many small ethnics groups and different religions. There were
some few ethnics which were big in size than others with some sort of social organization politically
and militarily, for instance Nyamwezi, Sukuma, Hehe, Chagae and some others, but these ethnics did
not have a feeling of building hegemony or/and empire on the one hand, and controlling and
governing others on the other. Although, the Nyamwezi under Mirambo were strong politically and
militariry, but they did not have a feeling of conquering other and controlling them. Others scholars,
for instance, Svendsen and Teisen have pointed out that Tanzanian Ethnic grouped “were loosely
organized with many leaders, thus, tribalism failed to become a significant political factors”.
Therefore, from sociological and anthropological point of view this organization structure can be
described as not centralized type of political and governance system as against many centralized
kingdoms had developed in many African countries. The pre-colonial tribal relations and
interactions have been built on peace rather than conflict. The pre-colonial communities, despite
their ethnic diversity lived in harmonious relationships due to various socio-cultural factors. Indeed,
the word harmonious does not mean there were no conflicts or/and eruptions of wars. Inter-tribal
ethnic wars occurred in some places due to various reasons. For instance the Ngoni invasion in the
southern parts is a good example of such conflicts. However, the pre-colonial era, for Tanganyika,
can be characterized by harmonious relationships between different ethnic groups. Although, there is
a limited body of literature on the factors which held different ethnics together before colonialism in
Tanzania, but some socio-economic and cultural factors such as social organization, the size and
number of ethnic groups, their spiritual life, practices (matambiko) and trade cemented the cohesion
between different tribes. Other factor which is also peculiar for Tanzanian tribes is the joking
relationships (utani/mtani), a type of an ideology which existed in Tanzania between various
neighbor ethnic groups and contributed to strengthern friendship between them