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In Zambia, most are multilingual. Here is the summary of the history of the evolution of language in Zambia.

A short history of Zambian peoples

Sub-Saharan history was kept orally in the sense that no written records were made of the culture and language of the peoples. A lot of the history of Africa is thus seen through lens of traders, slave raiders, religious missionaries and eventually colonialists.

The land bounded by borders now called Zambia was in-fact a land inhabited by a variety of tribes with varying cultures and languages. In colonial Northern Rhodesia, as Zambia was called before independence, these tribes found themselves in new towns working for and with individuals with native tongues vastly different to theirs.

The territory to the north of the Zambezi was acquired by Cecil Rhodes for the British South Africa Company (BSAC) in the 1890s through negotiations with various Chiefs. The western portion, known as Barotseland, was actually taken under British protection at the specific request of its ruler, Lewanika. Rhodes’ BSAC was instrumental in suppressing the slave trade which had existed for ages past in this part of the world. Rhodes also sought to include the Katanga territory as well but, in this respect and sadly for its people, he was unsuccessful.

(Elsewhere on this site reference is made to the fact that Rhodes’ interventions almost certainly saved many people from becoming subject to far less enlightened rulers.

The BSAC territory north of the Zambezi was divided into North-Western and North-Eastern Rhodesia. In 1911 these were brought together as Northern Rhodesia still under BSAC administration. In 1924, the year after Southern Rhodesia was granted self-government, Northern Rhodesia was transferred to direct control by the British Colonial Office. Throughout the colonial period, up to independence as Zambia in 1964, the territory was well governed even though it did not benefit from the economic and welfare advantages which self-government bestowed on the people of Southern Rhodesia. It's first president was Kenneth Kaudna.

Kaunda faced enormous challenges of building something called Zambia, having people who were living within these boundaries have any loyalty to that unit and put behind them various tensions that existed from before colonialism, that continued during colonialism, that were played on by the colonial powers in many ways.