Tanzania was only colonised in the last decades of the 19th century. The Germans as first colonisers did not establish their own language in the colony, however, but rather used the language of the coastal towns, Kiswahili, as a lingua franca also for the inland territory. When the British took over the colony after Word War I, they essentially kept this system. Kiswahili continued to be used in ethnically mixed centres and English was reserved for the highest functions in administration, law and education. The expansion of English down the social hierarchy began mainly at the end of colonial rule but Tanzania also made great progress towards expanding the functions of Kiswahili at the expense of English. TznE shows the characteristic features of New Englishes and has about 2 million speakers (5% of the population) today.