"It's high time we move from the coloniser's language."

This is not part of a rousing speech by a pan-African idealist but rather the sentence is uttered quietly and calmly by Ghanaian Swahili student Annabel Naa Odarley Lankai.

But her words echo declarations by the continent's visionaries down the decades.

Africa should "have something that is of us and for us", the 23-year-old adds.

In its heartland, Swahili and its dialects stretch from parts of Somalia down to Mozambique and across to the western parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.