DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The East African Community (EAC) has moved to set up a special council in charge of popularizing and promoting the local language of Kiswahili, local newspaper Daily News reported on Monday.

    The EAC council of ministers has directed the EAC secretariat, seated in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha, to facilitate theformation of the regional Kiswahili council by November 2005 in a bid to promote the language in the region, according to the report.

    The EAC council of ministers has asked Kenya and Uganda to establish national Kiswahili councils to speed up the adoption of the language as official language at the national level.

    The move was made by the EAC after Kiswahili was adopted by theAfrican Union as one of its official working languages.

    Kiswahili is a language spoken in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and some parts of Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the second most popular local language behind Arabicnow in use on the continent of Africa. Enditem