The Republic of Rwanda is a small, densely populated country located in the heart of Africa.
The 'land of the thousand hills', as it is often called due to its hilly landscape, represents, from
a sociolinguistic point of view, an interesting example with a trilingual language policy that
grants the status of an official language to its only national language Kinyarwanda, in addition
to French and English.
The main objective of this graduate thesis is to find out whether the official multilingual status
of these three languages is implemented or whether the language use and competence is
characterised by asymmetric power relations, with one language being seen more prestigious
than the others, that does not reflect the official equality of Kinyarwanda, English and French.
The historical, political and economic reasons for the introduction of a trilingual language
policy, Rwanda's ongoing transition from French to English, and the consequences of this shift
are going to be of prime importance.