Masinde, Y.N.Mtallo, G.R.2024-04-092024-04-092018Mtallo, G. R., & Masinde, Y. N. (2018). The Status of Ethnic Community Language (S) Within the Endogamous and Exogamous Families in Urban Centers of Tanzania. Business Education Journal, 4(1).URL: http://bej.cbe.ac.tz/index.php/bej/article/view/145https://repository.udom.ac.tz/handle/20.500.12661/4478Full text article, also available at URL: http://bej.cbe.ac.tz/index.php/bej/article/view/145This article dealt specifically with the status of Ethnic Community Languages (ECLs) within the endogamous and exogamous families especially in the aspect of use in the families living in urban centers. The study aimed at looking how these two groups of families communicate to each other especially under the concept of language choice. The respondents were obtained by using purposive sampling and the target populations were the workers in four higher learning institutions in Dodoma Municipality. Instruments for data collections were questionnaire and interview. The major findings of this study were; in the context of language use, both families use Kiswahili in their daily conversation, endogamous families use Kiswahili almost in all contexts except in few occasions, and Swahili language is being transmitted to their children in both families. Also it was observed that even when couples meet and speak with parents and people who speak the same language, they still resort to the use of Swahili instead of their ECLs. Also couples, whether from endogamous or exogamous families are no longer interested in using ethnic community languages in their families. There are only few occasions i.e. in greetings with their children, especially in the endogamous families where couples use ethnic languages. So the study concluded that, there were no major perceived differences between endogamous and exogamous families in terms of language use. This means that endogamous families, where husband and wife speak the same ethnic language, still use Kiswahili at home in all conversations. In the exogamous families as well, where the husband and wife speak different ethnic language, they also resort to Kiswahili as a language of daily communication. As a general picture of this study, it can be concluded that the status of ethnic community languages especially in the families living in urban centers are in the verge of extinction of their daily use as well as being transmitted to their children. It may not necessarily be true that couples who speak the same language may use the same at home during daily communication.enEndogamousExogamousEthnic community languageEthnicFamilyUrban centersArticle