The Kalenjin languages are a family of a dozen
Southern Nilotic languages spoken in
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. ...
, eastern
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
and northern
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
. The term ''Kalenjin'' comes from an expression meaning 'I say (to you)' or 'I have told you' (present participle tense). ''Kalenjin'' in this broad linguistic sense should not be confused with ''Kalenjin'' as a term for the common identity the Nandi-speaking peoples of Kenya assumed halfway through the twentieth century; see
Kalenjin people
The History of the Kalenjin people, Kalenjin is a group of tribes indigenous to East Africa, residing mainly in what was formerly the Rift Valley Province in Kenya and the eastern slopes of Mount Elgon in Uganda. They number 6,358,113 individu ...
and
Kalenjin language
Kalenjin may refer to:
* Kalenjin people of Kenya
** Elgeyo people (Keiyo people)
** Kipsigis people
** Marakwet people
** Nandi people
** Pokot people
** Terik people
** Tugen people
The Tugen are a sub tribe of the Kenyan Kalenjin people. ...
.
Branches
The Kalenjin languages are classified within the
Glottolog
''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...
database as follows:
* Kalenjin
**
Central Kalenjin
***
Kipsigis
*** Plateau Central Kalenjin
****
Tugen
**** Western Plateau Central Kalenjin
*****
Keiyo
*****
Nandi
*****
Terik
**
Elgon–Mau Kalenjin
***
Kupsabiny
***
Sabaot
** Northern Kalenjin
***
Markweeta
***
Pökoot
** Okiek–Akie
***
Akie
***
Okiek
Comparative vocabulary
Sample basic vocabulary of Kalenjin languages from van Otterloo (1979), and Proto-
Southern Nilotic from Rottland (1982):
[Rottland, Franz. 1982. ''Die Südnilotischen Sprachen: Beschreibung, Vergleichung und Rekonstruktion'' (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik vol. 7). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.]
Footnotes
References
*https://www.amazon.de/Kalenjin-Grammar-Beginners-Complete-Textbook-ebook/dp/B09VLL15M7
*Distefano, John Albert. 1985. ''The precolonial history of the Kalenjin of Kenya: a methodological comparison of linguistic and oral traditional evidence''. Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.
*Rottland, Franz (1982) ''Die Südnilotischen Sprachen: Beschreibung, Vergleichung und Rekonstruktion'' (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik vol. 7). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. ''(See esp. map 1 on p. 31, and the 'Sprachbeschreibung' of the Kalenjin languages on pp. 69–143.)''
*van Otterloo, Roger. 1979. ''A Kalenjin dialect study''. (Language Data Africa Series, 18.) Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
External links
Kalenjin–English Dictionary*
Phonology of Endo - a Kalenjin language
{{Authority control
Languages of Kenya