ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to explore from a social anthropological viewpoint some problems of language choice in a multilingual urban community. The community is of 1,468 households in two municipal housing estates in Kampala East, Uganda. Kampala, the capital of Uganda, was extended in late 1967 to include Mengo municipality, until recently the capital of the former kingdom of Buganda. My data is based on the situation preceding this when Kampala and Mengo were administered separately yet were each part of a single urban complex. I refer especially to the situation as I observed it from the middle of 1962 until early 1964. During this period Uganda’s independence was formally declared in October 1962.
