The Maa languages are a group of closely related
Eastern Nilotic languages (or from a linguistic perspective, dialects, as they appear to be mutually intelligible) spoken in parts of
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. ...
and
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 ...
by more than a million speakers. They are subdivided into North and South Maa. The Maa languages are related to the
Lotuko languages spoken in
South Sudan
South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...
.
History
In the past, several groups of people have abandoned their languages in favor of a Maa language, usually following a period of intensive cultural and economic contact. Among groups that have assimilated to Maa peoples are the
Aasáx (Asa) and the
El Molo, former hunter-gatherers who spoke
Cushitic languages
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of ...
, and the
Mukogodo-Maasai (Yaaku), former bee-keepers and hunter-gatherers (
Eastern Cushitic). The
Okiek of northern Tanzania, speakers of a
Southern Nilotic Kalenjin tongue, are under heavy influence from Maasai.
Languages
*Maa
**Northern Maa
***
Samburu (spoken by the
Samburu people
The Samburu are a Nilotic peoples, Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. Traditionally, they are semi-nomadic pastoralists who primarily herd cattle but also keep sheep, goats and camels. They refer to themselves as Lokop or Loikop, a term with ...
)
***
Camus (or il-Chamus, the preferred autonym; sometimes considered a dialect of Samburu)
**Southern Maa
***
Maasai (spoken by the
Maasai people
The Maasai (;) are a Nilotic peoples, Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, near the African Great Lakes region. s)
***
Ngasa or Ongamo (extinct or at least
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...
; most speakers have shifted to
Chaga) (Sommer 1992:380)
A Maa dialect is also spoken by the Baraguyu people of Central Tanzania, in an area known as the Makata Swamp near Morogoro, TZ.
Another Kenyan Maa variety once existed,
Kore. After being defeated by the Purko Maasai in the 1870s, the Kore fled to north-eastern Kenya where they were taken captive by
Somali people
The Somali people (, Wadaad: , Arabic: ) are a Cushitic ethnic group and nation native to the Somali Peninsula. who share a common ancestry, culture and history.
The East Cushitic Somali language is the shared mother tongue of ethnic Som ...
. After functioning for years as clients or slaves in Somali households, they were set free by British imperial forces around the end of the 19th century. They have lost their own language and speak
Somali. Loss of cattle brought them to
Lamu island in the second half of the 20th century, where they live nowadays.
Reconstruction
Proto-Ongamo-Maa has been reconstructed by Vossen & Rottland (1989).
[Vossen, Rainer and Franz Rottland. 1989. The historical reconstruction of Proto-Ongamo-Maa: phonology and vocabulary. In Bender, M. L. (ed.), Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics, 181-217. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.]
References
* Heine, Bernd & Vossen, Rainer (1980) 'The Kore of Lamu: A contribution to Maa dialectology', ''Afrika und übersee'', 62, 272–288.
* Vossen, Rainer (1982) ''The Eastern Nilotes: Linguistic and Historical Reconstructions''. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. .
* Vossen, Rainer (1988) ''Towards a comparative study of the Maa dialects of Kenya and Tanzania'' (Nilo-Saharan 2.) Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
* Sommer, Gabriele (1992) 'A survey on language death in Africa', in Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) ''Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa''. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 301–417.
External links
Maa Language Project a website maintained by
Doris L. Payne at the University of Oregon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maa Language
Agglutinative languages
Eastern Nilotic languages
Languages of Kenya
Languages of Tanzania
pt:Língua maasai