A discussion of the role of Swahili in Tanzania looks at its elaboration as an indigenous language, involving both internal modification of the written language and the extension of its institutionalized domains of use. Because of its role as the lingua franca of the independence movement, Swahili became a vehicle for national political organization. Three other factors have played an important part in the success of Swahili as a symbol, including its ethnic neutrality as an African language; the fact that disparate groups can identify with it; and the personal and political power of Julius Nyerere, who exploited it as a supra-ethnic vehicle of communication, making the transition between loyalty based on traditional social structure and loyalty to the artificial entity of the modern state. Language policy followed in the wake of Nyerere's reactions to perceived crises rather than as a result of concerted government policy. Linguists and educators assumed Swahili would become the medium of secondary and higher education in the 1970s and 1980s, but this did not happen. As a result, the political status of Swahili plummeted. The language continues to have great communicative strength, however, and represents modernity to most people. English has high prestige but weak entrenchment in Tanzania, whereas Swahili is strongly entrenched. (MSE)