Assesment Of Ethnic Language Endangerment In Tanzania: The Case Of Safwa Language.

ABSTRACT The disaster of language endangerment is understood by many to be among the most significant concerns confronting humankind today, presenting ethical and logical issues of tremendous extents. A risked language is that in danger of phasing out, or one anticipated stopping to be the methods for human correspondence for a particular society or social gathering. At the point when speakers of a language move to other languages and surrender their own, incredible learning of their way of life is lost. An expansive number of the world's languages are jeopardized, and it is in this feeling humankind faces an disaster. The study at hand focused on assessing the status of endangerment of Safwa language mainly spoken in Mbeya region. This study employed questionnaires, interviews as well as participatory observation for collecting data. It has been found that the attitude of Safwa speakers towards their language is negative; this has led to poor intergenerational language transmission and highly reduced the domains of use of the language. The study revealed that the language is not used in any new domain and media. According to UNESCO this situation is sufficient to label that Kisafwa is one of the endangered languages in Tanzania. Conversely Kiswahili, which is the dominant language in the region is taking advantages of negative attitude of the Safwa people towards their own language to expand its dominance and consequently becoming a more prestigious language ever. Kiswahili is the killer of many ethnic community languages in Tanzania.