Does Uganda have a common lingua franca?

Question

I know there Uganda has a variety of different languages commonly spoken in difference areas, but does Uganda have a lingua franca that the majority of people are able to speak, and that allows cross community communication?

I know English is the main official language of Uganda, but I'm told that in reality only a very small proportion of the country are able to speak it and many people don't even have a basic knowledge of it. It is merely an administrative language, not a communication language.

How common is Swahili used in Uganda, are many people able to speak it, does it serve as a lingua franca?

Thanks

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

Major language spoken in Uganda is Luganda. It belongs to Bantu group of languages, and is spoken by about six million people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luganda_language

Answer 2

Swahili not very common I think.

Lingala is the primary language of Uganda I think, not very sure but as you have not had an answer for eight hours..