Tanzania is, like most countries in East Africa, extremely culturally and linguistically diverse. Language counts range from 125 (Lewis, Simons & Fennig, 2016) to 164 living languages mentioned by the ‘Languages of Tanzania project’ (2009). Given this extreme multilingualism, institutional languages had to be chosen on a national level after independence. Kiswahili is the proclaimed national language and lingua franca of the East African region, also spoken in Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, and is used as medium of instruction (MoI) in primary education. English, the former colonial language, is the de facto national working language and medium of instruction in secondary and higher education. However, English remains a minority language, spoken by approximately 5% of the population, most of whom are members of a higher social class (Tibategeza, 2010). This leads to English being an international rather than a second language as in other former British colonies (Schmied, 1990, 1991). Rubanza (2002: 45) goes so far as to argue that ‘the society Tanzanians work and live in does not demand the use of English’. That is why it has been claimed that English will never replace the African languages in Tanzania but remain an additional language in certain spheres (Schmied, 1991).

Discussion about the official or national language in Tanzania is basically a discussion about Kiswahili and English. These two languages have been competing for official status in Tanzania since Tanganyika (Tanganyika refers to the Tanzania mainland before it united with Zanzibar in 1964) gained its independence from Britain in 1961 (Rubagumya, 1991; Schmied 1991: 195; Mulokozi, 2010). Yahya-Othman & Batibo (1996) describe the competition between English and Kiswahili in Tanzania as a swinging pendulum. In a certain period of time, the status of English rises, and in another period of time the status of Kiswahili rises, and vice versa.

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Swahili speakers confirm the presence of little interaction between males and females about taboo themes irrespective of the age of the interlocutors. The tendency is speculatively attributed to religion and patriarchy in society. However, a plausible cause, such as the difference in language use between males and females, had not been investigated before the current study. Consequently, the present study compared euphemism usage between Swahili male and female speakers on sex, sexual subjects, and other taboo subjects to correlate the communication tendencies and the amount of communication between the two genders. The tested null hypothesis was, “There is no significant difference in euphemism usage between male and female Swahili speakers." The t-test was based on data from 192 males and 192 females. The finding indicates that only three out of eleven taboo topics had gender-based discrepancies in the use of euphemisms among Swahili speakers. The result implies that the speech differences between males and females are not responsible for the shortfall of interaction about sensitive topics among Swahili speakers. In this regard, further correlational tests are suggested to establish the actual cause of this phenomenon which affects the welfare of society