Purpose: This study was to establish the comparative visibility of Rwanda’s official languages: English, French, and Kinyarwanda in public spaces and examine their relationship with classroom language practices in the urban districts of Nyarugenge, Gasabo, Kicukiro, Muhanga, and Musanze.

Methodology: This study employed a quantitative approach with a descriptive research design. Data were collected through systematic sampling of 600 street signs along selected routes and documentary analysis of language allocation in the curriculum.

Results: The results showed that monolingual English signs were the most dominant, accounting for 239 (39.8%) signs, followed by English–Kinyarwanda bilingual signs with 181 (30.1%) and monolingual Kinyarwanda signs with 104 (17.3%). Trilingual signs accounted for 34 (5.6%), while French-only signs were the least visible, with 7 (1.1%). Overall, English accounted for 53.4% of the language occurrences, Kinyarwanda 38.0%, and French 8.6%. Curriculum analysis indicated that English and Kinyarwanda receive greater instructional time than French, although allocations vary across educational levels and subject combinations.

Conclusions: English dominates Rwanda’s linguistic landscape, whereas Kinyarwanda requires further intellectualization to strengthen its role in education.

Limitations: The study was limited to urban areas, which constrained its generalizability to rural settings.

Contributions: This study contributes to linguistic landscape scholarship and language policy by demonstrating how language visibility reflects differentiated social, institutional, educational, and symbolic functions. The study recommends intellectualizing Kinyarwanda for use as a medium of instruction while teaching English and French as subjects to support international and regional communication.