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Eastern Nilotic Languages
The Eastern Nilotic languages are one of the three primary branches of the Nilotic languages, themselves belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan; they are believed to have begun to diverge about 3,000 years ago, and have spread southwards from an original home in Equatoria in South Sudan. They are spoken across a large area in East Africa, ranging from Equatoria to the highlands of Tanzania. Their speakers are mostly cattle herders living in semi-arid or arid plains. Classification According to Vossen (1982), the Eastern Nilotic languages are basically classified as follows by the comparative method. Vossen (1982) also provides a reconstruction of Proto-Eastern Nilotic. *Eastern Nilotic ** Bari languages **Teso–Lotuko–Maa: *** Teso–Turkana (or Ateker; incl. Karimojong) ***Lotuko–Maa: ****Lotuko languages ***** Lango language ***** Lopit language ***** Lokoya language ***** Lotuko language ***** Dongotono language ****Ongamo–Maa ***** Ongamo lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia covers a land area of . , it has around 128 million inhabitants, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, thirteenth-most populous country in the world, the List of African countries by population, second-most populous in Africa after Nigeria, and the most populous landlocked country on Earth. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African Plate, African and Somali Plate, Somali tectonic plates. Early modern human, Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out for the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lango Language (South Sudan)
Lango may refer to: Africa *Lango sub-region, previously known as Lango District, Uganda * Lango people, of Uganda **Lango language (Uganda), their language * Lango people (South Sudan) ** Lango language (South Sudan), their language * Didinga people of Sudan ** Didinga language Asia * Lango tribe, Pakistan Europe *Lángos, a Hungarian-style fried bread * Lango, the Venetian and Genoese name for the Greek island of Kos Kos or Cos (; ) is a Greek island, which is part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 37,089 (2021 census), making ... * Langø Island, Denmark Other uses * Lango (app), an icon-based messaging app {{disambig, geo Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nyangatom Language
Nyangatom (also Inyangatom, Donyiro, Dongiro, Idongiro) is a Nilotic language spoken in Ethiopia by the Nyangatom people The Nyangatom also known as Donyiro and pejoratively as Bumé are Nilotic agro-pastoralists inhabiting the border of southwestern Ethiopia, southeastern South Sudan, and the Ilemi Triangle. They speak the Nyangatom language. Overview The Nyang .... It is an oral language only, having no working orthography at present. Related languages include Toposa and Turkana, both of which have a level of mutual intelligibility; Blench (2012) counts it as a dialect of Turkana. Phonology Vowels * Vowel length is contrastive in Nyangatom, as in 'completely' vs. 'always' * Before a pause, short vowels carrying a single, simple tone are devoiced. Consonants Moges Yigezu, however, analyzes Nyangatom as having implosive stops, rather than voiced egressive stops.Yigezu, Moges. "Some notes on Implosive consonants in Nyangatom." Studies in Ethiopian Languages 5 (2016): ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turkana Language
Turkana Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh is the language of the Turkana people of Kenya and Ethiopia. It is spoken in northwestern Kenya, primarily in Turkana County, which lies west of Lake Turkana. It is one of the Eastern Nilotic languages, and is closely related to Karamojong, Jie and Teso of Uganda, to Toposa spoken in the extreme southeast of South Sudan, and to Nyangatom in the South Sudan/Ethiopia Omo valley borderland; these languages together form the cluster of Ateker Languages. The collective group name for these related peoples is Ateker. Phonology Consonants * can also occur as affricated when in syllable-initial positions. * Affricate sounds can also be heard as palatal stops . * Voiced stops may also occur glottalized as implosives when in syllable-initial positions. In syllable-final position, they are realized as unreleased. * is realized as a uvular stop when occurring in between vowels . When it is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teso Language
Teso (endonym ''Ateso'') is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken by the Teso people of Uganda and Kenya and some speakers are in South Sudan. It is part of the Teso–Turkana language cluster. According to the 2012 Uganda population and housing census, over 11.57 million people in Uganda (66.7 percent of the total Demographics of Uganda, Uganda population) spoke Ateso. Also, an estimated 279,000 people in Kenya speak the language. Its ISO 639-3 code is teo. Ateso is spoken in the Teso sub-region. Ateso is also known as ''Bakedi'', ''Bakidi'', ''Elgumi'', ''Etossio'', ''Ikumama'', ''Iteso'', ''Teso'' or ''Wamia''. It is closely related to Turkana language, Turkana and Karamojong language, Karamojong. Alphabet There are 22 letters in the Ateso alphabet. The letters ''f'', ''h'', ''q'', ''v'', ''h'', ''x'' and ''z'' are not used, while the alphabet includes additionally the letter ''ŋ'' and digraph ''ny''. The above mentioned letters only appear in loan words, loanwords. The pronunc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bari Language
Bari is the Nilotic language of the Karo people, spoken over large areas of Central Equatoria state in South Sudan, across the northwest corner of Uganda, and into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bari is spoken by several distinct tribes: the Bari people themselves, the Pojulu, Kakwa, Nyangwara, Mundari, and Kuku. Each has its own dialect. The language is therefore sometimes called Karo or Kutuk ('mother tongue') rather than ''Bari''. Bari is a tone language. It has vowel harmony, subject–verb–object word order, and agglutinative verbal morphology with some suppletion. A very competent dictionary and grammar were published in the 1930s, but are very difficult to find today. More recently, a dissertation has been published on Bari tonal phonology, and another dissertation on Bari syntax is available. Dialects Dialects are: * Bari proper (Beri) * Pöjulu (Pajulu, Fadjulu, Fajelu, Madi) * Kakwa (Kakua, Kwakwak) adio broadcasts in Uganda* Nyangbara (Nyangwara, Nya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Molo Language
El Molo is a moribund or extinct language belonging to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. It was spoken by the El Molo people on the southeastern shore of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya. Alternate names to El Molo are Dehes, Elmolo, Fura-Pawa, and Ldes. It was thought to be extinct in the middle part of the 20th century, but a few speakers were found in the later 20th century. Most of the El Molo population have shifted to the neighboring Samburu language, and there are only semispeakers left. El Molo also has no known dialects but it is similar to Daasanach. Oral tradition sees the El Molo people as an offshoot of the Arbore people in South Ethiopia. This seems to be confirmed by El Molo's linguistic proximity to the Arbore language. Classification El Molo belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. The Cushitic languages are one of the largest language families of East Africa, spoken in an area stretching from North-East Sudan at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samburu Language
Samburu is a Maa language dialect spoken by Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. .... The Samburu number about 128,000 (or 147,000 including the Camus/Chamus). The Samburu dialect is closely related to the Camus dialect (88% to 94% lexical similarity) and to the South Maasai dialects (77% to 89% lexical similarity). The word "Samburu" itself may derive from the Maa word ''saamburr'' for a leather bag the Samburu use. Phonology References Further reading * Rainer Vossen. ''The Eastern Nilotes: Linguistic and Historical Reconstructions''. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag 1982. . External linksMaa Language Project [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camus Language
The Ilchamus (sometimes spelled Iltiamus, also known as Njemps), are a Maa-speaking people living south and southeast of Lake Baringo, Kenya. They numbered approximately 32,949 people in 2019 and are closely related to the Samburu living more to the north-east in the Rift Valley Province. They are one of the smallest ethnic groups in Kenya. In their oral traditions, the Ilchamus economy underwent a succession of elaborations: from foraging and fishing to a sophisticated system of irrigation, and then this was mixed with pastoralism under the influence of Samburu immigrants and neighbouring Maasai. These changes involved a series of embellishments in their culture and social organization. However, this evolving system did not survive the challenges of the capitalist economy in post-colonial Kenya, leading to a more polarized society with diminishing prospects for the majority of Ilchamus. Language Camus or Chamus (autonym: il-Chamus) is classified under the Maa languages in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mukogodo-Maasai
The Yaaku are a people who are said to have lived in regions of southern Ethiopia and central Kenya, possibly through to the 18th century. The language they spoke is today called Yaakunte. The Yaaku assimilated a hunter-gathering population, whom they called Mukogodo, when they first settled in their place of origin and the Mukogodo adopted the Yaakunte language. However, the Yaaku were later assimilated by a food producing population and they lost their way of life. The Yaakunte language was kept alive for sometime by the Mukogodo who maintained their own hunter-gathering way of life, but they were later immersed in Maasai culture and adopted the Maa language and way of life. The Yaakunte language is today facing extinction but is undergoing a revival movement. In the present time, the terms Yaaku and Mukogodo (sometimes Mukogodo Maasai), are used to refer to a population living in Mukogodo forest west of Mount Kenya. Etymology The name Yaaku is said to be a Southern Nilotic ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maasai Language
Maasai (previously spelled ''Masai'') or Maa ( ; autonym: ''ɔl Maa'') is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 1.5 million. It is closely related to the other Maa varieties: Samburu (or Sampur), the language of the Samburu people of central Kenya, Chamus, spoken south and southeast of Lake Baringo (sometimes regarded as a dialect of Samburu); and Parakuyu of Tanzania. The Maasai, Samburu, il-Chamus and Parakuyu peoples are historically related and all refer to their language as . Properly speaking, "Maa" refers to the language and the culture and "Maasai" refers to the people "who speak Maa". Phonology The Maasai variety of as spoken in southern Kenya and Tanzania has 30 contrasting phonemes, including a series of implosive consonants. In Maasai, tone has a very productive role, conveying a wide range of grammatical and semantic functions. Consonants In the table of consonant phonemes bel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ongamo Language
Ongamo, or Ngas, is an extinct Eastern Nilotic language of Tanzania. It is closely related to the Maa languages, but more distantly than they are to each other. Ongamo has 60% of lexical similarity with Maasai, Samburu, and Camus. Speakers have shifted to Chagga, a dominant regional Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South .... History An expansion of Ngasa speakers onto the plains north of Mount Kilimanjaro occurred in the 12th century. The language was mutually intelligible with Proto-Maasai during that period. Vocabulary retention from this time attests to the cultivation of sorghum and eleusine by the Ngas. Subsequent immigration of Bantu-speaking Chagga over the next five centuries considerably reduced the extent and viability of the Ngasa language.L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
