Abstract: Language holds major significance because it helps people to develop their personal identities while enabling them to pass their identities through time and it helps people to stay connected with each other in regions where international interactions take place. This article considers Kinyarwanda as a transnational linguistic system, meaning that it is not only the official language of Rwanda but it is also a culturally and communicatively binding element for the Great Lakes African region and the Rwandan diaspora. Adopting a qualitative paradigm for sociolinguistics and history, the study is carried out with secondary sources (linguistic databases, scholarly literature, demographic reports, and cultural literature). The findings of this research show that Kinyarwanda belongs to a very homogenous Rwanda-Rundi language group in the Bantu group of the Niger-Congo language family with many structural and phonetic correspondences and a high degree of intelligibility with other languages such as Kirundi or Rufumbira. The spread of Kinyarwanda across countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania suggests a unified language community in the region, rather than national language communities, and migration has helped Kinyarwanda to become a diaspora language. The paper refers to this situation of cultural identity through language as a theory of “Rwandafoni,” and compares it with other language groups in the world. The authors explain that people use language as a process which exists beyond the limits of national territory.
Keywords: Kinyarwanda, Rwandafoni, Rwanda-Rundi Languages, African Sociolinguistics, Great Lakes Region, Transnational Identity, Diaspora Language, Bantu Languages.
Title: Rwandafoni: The Transnational Linguistic Community of Kinyarwanda Across the African Great Lakes Region and the Global Diaspora
Author: Professor Dr. Idi (Ras) Banamungu, Claude Bizumuremyi
International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations
ISSN 2348-1218 (print), ISSN 2348-1226 (online)
Vol. 14, Issue 2, April 2026 - June 2026
Page No: 64-69
Research Publish Journals
Website: www.researchpublish.com
Published Date: 29-May-2026
