94-650: Modern ethnicities Diaspora Performing arts Government agencies Television Radio Newspapers The Maasai ( / ˈ m ɑː s aɪ , m ɑː ˈ s aɪ / ; Swahili : Wamasai ) are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania , near the African Great Lakes region. Their native language is the Maasai language , a Nilotic language related to Dinka , Kalenjin and Nuer . Except for some elders living in rural areas, most Maasai people speak
188-565: A 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish in English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford,
282-476: A German lieutenant in what was then northwest Tanganyika , was that 90% of cattle and half of wild animals perished from rinderpest. German doctors in the same area claimed that "every second" African had a pock-marked face as the result of smallpox. This period coincided with drought. Rains failed in 1897 and 1898. The Austrian explorer Oscar Baumann travelled in Maasai lands between 1891 and 1893 and described
376-749: A Monkey ;" " Mwalimu Goso, " "Goso the Teacher," a cumulative tale ; and " Sungura na Simba, " "The Hare and the Lion," a story about the trickster hare . Here are some of the proverbs that Steere recorded in Swahili: Here are some of the riddles that Steere recorded in Swahili: Mount Meru (Tanzania) Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
470-579: A dual nature, represented by two colours: Engai Narok (Black God) is benevolent, and Engai Na-nyokie (Red God) is vengeful. There are also two pillars or totems of Maasai society: Oodo Mongi, the Red Cow and Orok Kiteng, the Black Cow with a subdivision of five clans or family trees . The Maasai also have a totemic animal, which is the lion. The killing of a lion is used by the Maasai in the rite of passage ceremony. The "Mountain of God", Ol Doinyo Lengai ,
564-467: A fraction of that. According to other sources, around 40% of the Swahili vocabulary comes from Arabic. What also remained unconsidered was that a good number of the borrowed terms had Bantu equivalents. The preferred use of Arabic loan words is prevalent along the coast, where local people, in a cultural show of proximity to, or descent from Arab culture, would rather use loan words, whereas the people in
658-736: A historical process in which /l/ became elided between the second last and last vowels of a word (for example, kondoo , "sheep" was originally kondolo , which survives in certain dialects ). As a consequence, long vowels are not considered phonemic . A similar process exists in Zulu . Where not shown, the orthography is the same as IPA. Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes /pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ bʱ dʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ/ though they are unmarked in Swahili's orthography. Multiple studies favour classifying prenasalization as consonant clusters, not as separate phonemes. Historically, nasalization has been lost before voiceless consonants, and subsequently
752-451: A large amount of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds inherited from the Sabaki language . In fact, while taking account of daily vocabulary, using lists of one hundred words, 72–91% were inherited from the Sabaki language (which is reported as a parent language) whereas 4–17% were loan words from other African languages. Only 2–8% were from non-African languages, and Arabic loan words constituted
846-573: A major role in spreading both Christianity and Islam in East Africa . From their arrival in East Africa, Arabs brought Islam and set up madrasas , where they used Swahili to teach Islam to the natives. As the Arab presence grew, more and more natives converted to Islam and were taught using the Swahili language. From the arrival of Europeans in East Africa, Christianity was introduced to
940-578: A means of national integration in Tanzania. Key activities mandated for the organisation include creating a healthy atmosphere for the development of Swahili, encouraging use of the language in government and business functions, coordinating activities of other organisations involved with Swahili, standardising the language. BAKITA vision are: "1.To efficiently manage and coordinate the development and use of Kiswahili in Tanzania 2.To participate fully and effectively in promoting Swahili in East Africa, Africa and
1034-481: A more sedentary lifestyle. They have demanded grazing rights to many of the national parks in both countries. The Maasai people stood against slavery and never condoned the traffic of human beings, and outsiders looking for people to enslave avoided the Maasai. Essentially there are twenty-two geographic sectors or sub-tribes of the Maasai community, each one having its customs, appearance, leadership and dialects. These subdivisions are known as 'nations' or 'iloshon' in
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#17327808412671128-652: A pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades ", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura ( ki-ura ) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore is marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt
1222-433: A prenasalized consonant, they are pronounced as [e] , [ɪ] , [o] , and [ʊ] . E is also commonly pronounced as mid-position after w . Polomé claims that /ɑ/ is pronounced as such only after w and is pronounced as [a] in other situations, especially after /j/ ( y ). A can be pronounced as [ə] in word-final position. Long vowels in Swahili are written as doubled vowels (for example, kondoo , "sheep") due to
1316-468: A second language spoken by tens of millions of people in the five African Great Lakes countries ( Kenya , DRC , Rwanda , Uganda , and Tanzania ), where it is an official or national language. It is also the first language for many people in Tanzania, especially in the coastal regions of Tanga, Pwani, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi. In the inner regions of Tanzania, Swahili is spoken with an accent influenced by other local languages and dialects. There, it
1410-626: A subject in schools or have developed plans to do so. Shikomor (or Comorian ), an official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte ( Shimaore ), is closely related to Swahili and is sometimes considered a dialect of Swahili, although other authorities consider it a distinct language. In 2022, based on Swahili's growth as a prominent international language, the United Nations declared Swahili Language Day as 7 July to commemorate
1504-462: A substitute for k in advertisements. There are also several digraphs for Arabic sounds, which many speakers outside of ethnic Swahili areas have trouble differentiating. The language used to be primarily written in the Ajami script , which is an Arabic script. Much literature was produced in this script. With the introduction of Latin, the use of Ajami script has been diminished significantly. However,
1598-516: A system of concord but, if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1–2 regardless of their noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) , based on the dialect spoken in Zanzibar, the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili
1692-695: A variety of gender-concord prefixes. This list is based on Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history . Modern standard Swahili, written in Latin, is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar City . Swahili literature and poetry, traditionally written in Swahili Ajami , is based on Kiamu , the dialect of Lamu on the Kenyan Coast. But there are numerous other dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, such as
1786-666: Is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan primary and secondary schools. Swahili is recognized as a national language in the Democratic Republic of The Congo and is widely spoken in the eastern regions. The local dialects of Swahili in Congo are known as Congo Swahili and differ considerably from Standard Swahili. In order to strengthen political ties with other East African Community nations, both Kiswahili and English have been taught in Burundian elementary schools since
1880-550: Is a first language for most of the people who are born in the cities, whilst being spoken as a second language in rural areas. Swahili and closely related languages are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi , Comoros , Malawi , Mozambique , Zambia and Rwanda . The language was still understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea in the 20th century. The East African Community created an institution called
1974-434: Is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Animals exceptional in some way and so not easily fitting in
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#17327808412672068-607: Is both a means of tribal identification and symbolism: young men, for example, wear black for several months following their circumcision. Swahili language Swahili , also known by its local name Kiswahili , is a Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people , who are found primarily in Tanzania , Kenya , and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent littoral islands). Estimates of
2162-597: Is generally only spoken by Somali nationals who have resided in Kenya and subsequently returned to Somalia. Lastly, a closely related language Mushunguli (also known as Zigula, Zigua, or Chizigua) is spoken by some of the Somali Bantu ethnic minority mostly living in the Jubba Valley . It is classified as a Northeast Coast Bantu language as Swahili is and has some intelligibility with Swahili. Swahili played
2256-408: Is located in northernmost Tanzania and can be seen from Lake Natron in southernmost Kenya. The central human figure in the Maasai religious system is the laibon whose roles include shamanistic healing , divination and prophecy , and ensuring success in war or adequate rainfall. Today, they have a political role as well due to the elevation of leaders. Whatever power an individual laibon had
2350-526: Is named and the head is shaved clean apart from a tuft of hair, which resembles a cockade , from the nape of the neck to the forehead. Among the men, warriors are the only members of the Maasai community to wear long hair, which they weave in thinly braided strands. Graduation from warrior to junior elder takes place at a large gathering known as Eunoto. The long hair of the former warriors is shaved off ; elders must wear their hair short. Warriors who do not have sexual relations with women who have not undergone
2444-575: Is not a native language, such as in Nairobi. In non-native Swahili, concord reflects only animacy: human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger i-, zi- . Infinitives vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za. ) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, and non-human subjects and objects trigger
2538-422: Is not uncommon for bodies to be covered in fat and blood from a slaughtered ox . Traditional Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle , which constitute their primary source of food. In a patriarchal culture that views women as property, a man's wealth is measured in cattle, wives and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more wives and children the better. A man who has plenty of one but not
2632-430: Is one of the early developers. The applications include a spelling checker , part-of-speech tagging , a language learning software , an analysed Swahili text corpus of 25 million words, an electronic dictionary , and machine translation between Swahili and English. The development of language technology also strengthens the position of Swahili as a modern medium of communication. Furthermore, Swahili Misplaced Pages
2726-556: Is one of the few Wikipedias in an African language that features a substantial number of contributors and articles. The widespread use of Swahili as a national language in Tanzania came after Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 and the government decided that it would be used as a language to unify the new nation. This saw the use of Swahili in all levels of government, trade, art as well as schools in which primary school children are taught in Swahili, before switching to English (medium of instruction) in secondary schools (although Swahili
2820-532: Is one of three official languages (the others being English and French) of the East African Community (EAC) countries, namely Burundi , Democratic Republic of the Congo , Kenya , Rwanda , Somalia , South Sudan , Tanzania , and Uganda . It is the lingua franca of other areas in the African Great Lakes region and East and Southern Africa . Swahili is also one of the working languages of
2914-960: Is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru " rhinoceros ", kingugwa " spotted hyena ", and kiboko " hippopotamus " (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs"). Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example. However, it seems to cover vital entities neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts ( moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From
Maasai people - Misplaced Pages Continue
3008-567: Is spoken along the Benadir coast by the Bravanese people . Another Swahili dialect known as Kibajuni also serves as the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group, which lives in the tiny Bajuni Islands as well as the southern Kismayo region. In Oman , there are an estimated 52,000 people who speak Swahili as of 2020. Most are descendants of those repatriated after the fall of
3102-582: Is still taught as an independent subject). After Tanganyika and Zanzibar unification in 1964, Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI, Institute of Swahili Research) was created from the Interterritorial Language Committee. In 1970 TUKI was merged with the University of Dar es Salaam , while Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (BAKITA) was formed. BAKITA is an organisation dedicated to the development and advocacy of Swahili as
3196-795: The African Union and of the Southern African Development Community . The East African Community created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region , as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development. In recent years South Africa , Botswana , Namibia , Ethiopia , and South Sudan have begun offering Swahili as
3290-808: The Horn of Africa , specifically among Amharas . Genetic data and archeologic evidence suggest that East African pastoralists received West Eurasian ancestry (~25%) through Afroasiatic-speaking groups from Northern Africa or the Arabian Peninsula , and later spread this ancestry component southwards into certain Khoisan groups roughly 2,000 years ago, resulting in ~5% West-Eurasian ancestry among Southern African hunter-gatherers. A 2019 archaeogenetic study sampled ancient remains from Neolithic inhabitants of Tanzania and Kenya, and found them to have strongest affinities with modern Horn of Africa groups. They modelled
3384-517: The Maa language : the Keekonyokie , Ildamat, Purko, Wuasinkishu, Siria, Laitayiok, Loitai, Ilkisonko, Matapato, Dalalekutuk, Ilooldokilani, Ilkaputiei, Moitanik, Ilkirasha, Samburu , Ilchamus, Laikipiak , Loitokitoki, Larusa, Salei, Sirinket and Parakuyo . Recent advances in genetic analyses have helped shed some light on the ethnogenesis of the Maasai people. Genetic genealogy , a tool that uses
3478-532: The Sultanate of Zanzibar . There are Swahili-based slangs, pidgins and creoles: In 1870, Edward Steere published Swahili Tales as Told by Natives of Zanzibar , a collection of 23 Swahili tales with facing-text English translation, along with a selection of proverbs and riddles. Some of the tales included are: " Kisa cha Punda wa Dobi, " "The Story of the Washerman's Donkey," also known as " The Heart of
3572-526: The Tanganyika African National Union used Swahili as a language of mass organisation and political movement. This included publishing pamphlets and radio broadcasts to rally the people to fight for independence. After gaining independence, Swahili was adopted as the national language. To this day, Tanzanians carry a sense of pride when it comes to Swahili, especially when it is used to unite over 120 tribes across Tanzania. Swahili
3666-529: The "Emuatare" ceremony are especially honoured at the Eunoto gathering. This would symbolise the healing of the woman. Two days before boys are circumcised, their heads are shaved. When warriors go through the Eunoto and become elders, their long plaited hair is shaved off. Maasai music traditionally consists of rhythms provided by a chorus of vocalists singing harmonies while a song leader, or olaranyani, sings
3760-452: The 111 children examined exhibited missing mandibular or maxillary deciduous canines. Traditionally, the Maasai conduct elaborate rite of passage rituals which include surgical genital mutilation to initiate children into adulthood. The Maa word for circumcision , "emorata," is applied to this ritual for both males and females. This ritual is typically performed by the elders, who use a sharpened knife and makeshift cattle hide bandages for
3854-498: The 1940s. More land was taken to create wildlife reserves and national parks: Amboseli National Park , Nairobi National Park , Maasai Mara , Samburu National Reserve , Lake Nakuru National Park and Tsavo in Kenya; and Lake Manyara , Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tarangire and Serengeti National Park in what is now Tanzania. Maasai are pastoralists and have resisted the urging of the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments to adopt
Maasai people - Misplaced Pages Continue
3948-473: The Arabic script (an unmodified version as opposed to proposals such as that of Mwalimu Sikujua) was relatively high. There were also differences in orthographic conventions between cities and authors and over the centuries, some quite precise but others different enough to cause difficulties with intelligibility. Thus despite a lack of official governmental backing, attempts at standardization and Swahilization of
4042-482: The Arabic script continued into the 20th century. Swahili nouns are separable into classes , which are roughly analogous to genders in other languages. In Swahili, prefixes mark groups of similar objects: ⟨m-⟩ marks single human beings ( mtoto 'child'), ⟨wa-⟩ marks multiple humans ( watoto 'children'), ⟨u-⟩ marks abstract nouns ( utoto 'childhood'), and so on. And just as adjectives and pronouns must agree with
4136-569: The East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region , as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development. Swahili is among the first languages in Africa for which language technology applications have been developed. Arvi Hurskainen
4230-469: The Maasai as goat leaves). One common misconception about the Maasai is that each young man is supposed to kill a lion before he can be circumcised and enter adulthood. Lion hunting was an activity of the past, but it has been banned in East Africa – yet lions are still hunted when they maul Maasai livestock. Nevertheless, killing a lion gives one great value and celebrity status in the community. The piercing and stretching of earlobes are common among
4324-400: The Maasai as with other tribes, and both men and women wear metal hoops on their stretched earlobes. Various materials have been used to both pierce and stretch the lobes, including thorns for piercing, twigs, bundles of twigs, stones, the cross-section of elephant tusks and empty film canisters. Women wear various forms of beaded ornaments in both the ear lobe and smaller piercings at the top of
4418-558: The Maasai cattle are of the Zebu variety. Most of the milk is consumed as fermented milk or buttermilk (a by-product of butter making). Milk consumption figures are very high by any standards. The Maasai herd goats and sheep, including the Red Maasai sheep , as well as the more prized cattle. Although consumed as snacks, fruits constitute a major part of the food ingested by children and women looking after cattle as well as morans in
4512-438: The Maasai community as having ancestry that is ~47% Pastoral Neolithic Cushitic-related and ~53% Sudanese Dinka-related. A Y chromosome study by Wood et al. (2005) tested various Sub-Saharan populations, including 26 Maasai men from Kenya, for paternal lineages. The authors observed haplogroup E1b1b -M35 (not M78) in 35% of the studied Maasai. E1b1b-M35-M78 in 15%, their ancestor with the more northerly Cushitic men, who possess
4606-534: The Maasai, show multiple cluster assignments from the Nilo-Saharan [...] and Cushitic [...] AACs, in accord with linguistic evidence of repeated Nilotic assimilation of Cushites over the past 3000 years and with the high frequency of a shared East African–specific mutation associated with lactose tolerance." Maasai display significant West-Eurasian admixture at roughly ~20%. This type of West-Eurasian ancestry reaches up to 40-50% among specific populations of
4700-465: The academic year 2005/2006. Kiswahili is now used widely in Burundi but is not recognised as an official language; only French, Kirundi, and English have this distinction. Since 2013, Swahili has been included in the all Burundian education system. Uganda adopted Kiswahili as one of its official languages (alongside English ) in 2022, and also made it compulsory across primary and secondary schools in
4794-611: The alphabet system from Arabic to Latin. After the First World War, Britain took over German East Africa, where they found Swahili rooted in most areas, not just the coastal regions. The British decided to formalise it as the language to be used across the East African region (although in British East Africa [Kenya and Uganda] most areas used English and various Nilotic and other Bantu languages while Swahili
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#17327808412674888-536: The area, including the Maasai, the Turkana and the Kalenjin , are pastoralists and have a reputation as fearsome warriors and cattle rustlers. The Maasai and other groups in East Africa have adopted customs and practices from neighbouring Cushitic-speaking groups, including the age-set system of social organisation, circumcision , and vocabulary terms. Many ethnic groups that had already formed settlements in
4982-418: The bush. Medicine The Maasai people traditionally used the environment when making their medicines, and many still do, due to the high cost of Western treatments. These medicines are derived from trees, shrubs, stems, roots, etc. These can then be used in a multitude of ways including being boiled in soups and ingested to improve digestion and cleanse the blood. Some of these remedies can also be used in
5076-459: The central idea of tree , which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono
5170-542: The ceremony that initiates young Maasai girls into adulthood through ritual mutilation and then into early arranged marriages. The Maasai believe that female genital mutilation is necessary and Maasai men may reject any woman who has not undergone it as either not marriageable or worthy of a much-reduced bride price. In Eastern Africa, uncircumcised women, even highly educated members of parliament like Linah Kilimo , can be accused of not being mature enough to be taken seriously. The Maasai activist Agnes Pareyio campaigns against
5264-515: The coast of East Africa played a role in the growth and spread of Swahili. With the arrival of the Arabs in East Africa, they used Swahili as a language of trade as well as for teaching Islam to the local Bantu peoples . This resulted in Swahili first being written in the Arabic script. The later contact with the Portuguese resulted in the increase of vocabulary of the Swahili language. The language
5358-595: The coming-of-age ceremony of the warrior, can involve ten or more days of singing, dancing and ritual. The warriors of the Il-Oodokilani perform a kind of march-past as well as the Adumu , or aigus, sometimes referred to as "the jumping dance" by non-Maasai. (Both adumu and aigus are Maa verbs meaning "to jump" with adumu meaning "To jump up and down in a dance".) Traditionally, the Maasai diet consisted of raw meat, raw milk, honey and raw blood from cattle —note that
5452-468: The country. The Swahili language is not widespread in Somalia and has no official status nationally or regionally. Dialects of Swahili are spoken by some ethnic minorities on the Bajuni islands in the form of Kibajuni on the southern tip of the country and in the town of Brava in the form of Chimwiini ; both contain a significant amount of Somali and Italian loanwords. Standard Swahili
5546-523: The date that Julius Nyerere adopted Swahili as a unifying language for African independence struggles. Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch . In Guthrie's geographic classification , Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name Nyika. Historical linguists consider the Arabic influence on Swahili to be significant, since it takes around 15% of its vocabulary directly from Arabic , and
5640-479: The ear. Among Maasai males, circumcision is practised as a ritual of transition from boyhood to manhood. Women are also circumcised (as described below in social organisation ). This belief and practice are not unique to the Maasai. In rural Kenya, a group of 95 children aged between six months and two years were examined in 1991/92. 87% were found to have undergone the removal of one or more deciduous canine tooth buds. In an older age group (3–7 years of age), 72% of
5734-481: The entire world over". Although other bodies and agencies can propose new vocabularies, BAKITA is the only organisation that can approve its usage in the Swahili language. Tanzanians are highly credited for shaping the language to appear the way it is now. In Kenya, Kiswahili has been the national language since 1964 and is official since 2010. Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (CHAKITA) was established in 1998 to research and promote Kiswahili language in Kenya. Kiswahili
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#17327808412675828-508: The following: Maho (2009) considers these to be distinct languages: The rest of the dialects are divided by him into two groups: Maho includes the various Comorian dialects as a third group. Most other authorities consider Comorian to be a Sabaki language, distinct from Swahili. In Somalia , where the Afroasiatic Somali language predominates, a variant of Swahili referred to as Chimwiini (also known as Chimbalazi)
5922-442: The former are kisu "knife", kiti "chair" (from mti "tree, wood"), chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo ). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba ( ki-umba ) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to diminutives in many languages is approximation and resemblance (having
6016-482: The gender of nouns in some languages with grammatical gender, so in Swahili adjectives, pronouns and even verbs must agree with nouns. This is a characteristic feature of all the Bantu languages . The ki-/vi- class historically consisted of two separate genders, artefacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils and hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12/13), which were conflated at a stage ancestral to Swahili. Examples of
6110-532: The genes of modern populations to trace their ethnic and geographic origins, has also helped clarify the possible background of modern Maasai. The Maasai's autosomal DNA has been examined in a comprehensive study by Tishkoff et al. (2009) on the genetic affiliations of various populations in Africa. According to the study's authors, the Maasai "have maintained their culture in the face of extensive genetic introgression". Tishkoff et al. also indicate that: "Many Nilo-Saharan-speaking populations in East Africa, such as
6204-566: The haplogroup at high frequencies lived more than 13,000 years ago. The second most frequent paternal lineage among the Maasai was Haplogroup A3b2 , which is commonly found in Nilotic populations, such as the Alur ; it was observed in 27% of Maasai men. The third most frequently observed paternal DNA marker in the Maasai was E1b1a1-M2 (E-P1), which is very common in the Sub-Saharan region; it
6298-583: The interior tend to use the Bantu equivalents. It was originally written in Arabic script . The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa , Tanzania , in 1711 in the Arabic script that were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India . Various colonial powers that ruled on
6392-463: The language continues to have a tradition of being written in Arabic script. Starting from the later half of the 19th century, continuing into the 20th century, and going on in the 21st century, a process of "Swahilization" of the Arabic Script has been underway by Swahili scribes and scholars. The first of such attempts was done by Mwalimu Sikujua , a scholar and poet from Mombasa . However,
6486-491: The melody. Unlike most other African tribes, Maasai widely use drone polyphony . Women chant lullabies, humming songs, and songs praising their sons. Nambas, the call-and-response pattern, repetition of nonsensical phrases, monophonic melodies, repeated phrases following each verse being sung on a descending scale, and singers responding to their verses are characteristic of singing by women. When many Maasai women gather together, they sing and dance among themselves. Eunoto,
6580-571: The move in what is now Kenya. In 1857, after having depopulated the "Wakuafi wilderness" in what is now southeastern Kenya, Maasai warriors threatened Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. Because of this migration, the Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers. The period of expansion was followed by the Maasai "Emutai" of 1883–1902. This period was marked by epidemics of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia , rinderpest (see 1890s African rinderpest epizootic ), and smallpox . The estimate first put forward by
6674-402: The name of the language ( سَوَاحِلي sawāḥilī , a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word meaning 'of the coasts'). The loanwords date from the era of contact between Arab traders and the Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Africa, which was also the time period when Swahili emerged as a lingua franca in the region. Due to concerted efforts by the government of Tanzania , Swahili
6768-422: The number of Swahili speakers, including both native and second-language speakers, vary widely. They generally range from 60 million to 150 million; with most of its native speakers residing in Tanzania. Swahili has a significant number of loanwords from other languages, mainly Arabic , as well as from Portuguese , English and German . Around 40% of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords, including
6862-455: The official languages of Kenya and Tanzania— Swahili and English . The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 1,189,522 in Kenya in the 2019 census, compared to 377,089 in the 1989 census, though many Maasai view the census as government meddling and therefore either refuse to participate or actively provide false information. The Maasai inhabit the African Great Lakes region and arrived via South Sudan . Most Nilotic speakers in
6956-595: The old Maasai settlement in the Ngorongoro Crater in the 1894 book Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle ("Through the lands of the Maasai to the source of the Nile"). By one estimate two-thirds of the Maasai died during this period. Maasai in Tanganyika (now mainland Tanzania) were displaced from the fertile lands between Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro , and most of the fertile highlands near Ngorongoro in
7050-405: The original emphatic consonants /dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, ðˤ/ and the uvular /q/ , or lengthening a vowel, where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu words. Swahili is now written in the Latin alphabet. There are a few digraphs for native sounds, ch , sh , ng ' and ny ; q and x are not used, c is not used apart from the digraph ch , unassimilated English loans and, occasionally, as
7144-626: The other classes may be placed in this class. The other classes have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. In short, Borrowings may or may not be given a prefix corresponding to the semantic class they fall in. For example, Arabic دود dūd ("bug, insect") was borrowed as mdudu , plural wadudu , with the class 1/2 prefixes m- and wa- , but Arabic فلوس fulūs ("fish scales", plural of فلس fals ) and English sloth were borrowed as simply fulusi (" mahi-mahi " fish) and slothi (" sloth "), with no prefix associated with animals (whether those of class 9/10 or 1/2). In
7238-484: The other is considered to be poor. All of the Maasai's needs for food are met by their cattle. They eat their meat, drink their milk daily, and drink their blood on occasion. Bulls, goats, and lambs are slaughtered for meat on special occasions and ceremonies. Though the Maasai's entire way of life has historically depended on their cattle, more recently with their cattle dwindling, the Maasai have grown dependent on food such as sorghum , rice, potatoes and cabbage (known to
7332-402: The practice. The female rite of passage ritual has recently seen excision replaced in rare instances with a "cutting with words" ceremony involving singing and dancing in its place. However, despite changes to the law and education drives, the practice remains deeply ingrained, highly valued, and nearly universally practised by members of the culture. Upon reaching the age of 3 "moons", the child
7426-578: The procedure. The male ceremony refers to the excision of the prepuce (foreskin). In the male ceremony, the boy is expected to endure the operation in silence. Expressions of pain bring dishonour upon him, albeit only temporarily. Importantly, any exclamations or unexpected movements on the part of the boy can cause the elder to make a mistake in the delicate and tedious process, which can result in severe lifelong scarring, dysfunction, and pain. Young women also undergo female genital mutilation as part of an elaborate rite of passage ritual called "Emuatare,"
7520-521: The process of naturalization of borrowings within Swahili, loanwords are often reinterpreted, or reanalysed, as if they already contain a Swahili class prefix. In such cases the interpreted prefix is changed with the usual rules. Consider the following loanwords from Arabic: Similarly, English wire and Arabic وقت waqt ("time") were interpreted as having the class 11 prevocalic prefix w- , and became waya and wakati with plural nyaya and nyakati respectively. Swahili phrases agree with nouns in
7614-539: The region were forcibly displaced by the incoming Maasai. Other, mainly Southern Cushitic groups, were assimilated into Maasai society. The Nilotic ancestors of the Kalenjin likewise absorbed some early Cushitic populations. The Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-19th century and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in
7708-485: The region, such as the Samburu . Most of the tested Maasai belonged to various macro-haplogroup L sub-clades, including L0 , L2 , L3 , L4 and L5 . Some maternal gene flow from North and Northeast Africa was also reported, particularly via the presence of mtDNA haplogroup M lineages in about 12.5% of the Maasai samples. The monotheistic Maasai worship a single deity called Enkai , Nkai , or Engai . Engai has
7802-407: The region. While the Arabs were mostly based in the coastal areas, European missionaries went further inland spreading Christianity. As the first missionary posts in East Africa were in the coastal areas, missionaries picked up Swahili and used it to spread Christianity, since it contained many similarities with other indigenous languages in the region. During the struggle for Tanganyika independence,
7896-518: The south. At this time the Maasai, as well as the larger Nilotic group they were part of, raised cattle as far east as the Tanga coast in Tanganyika (now mainland Tanzania). Raiders used spears and shields but were most feared for throwing clubs (orinka) which could be accurately thrown from up to 70 paces (approx. 100 metres). In 1852, there was a report of a concentration of 800 Maasai warriors on
7990-421: The specifics, it has been historically purported that around 16–20% of the Swahili vocabulary is derived from loan words, the vast majority Arabic , but also other contributing languages, including Persian , Hindustani , Portuguese , and Malay . Omani Arabic is the source of most Arabic loanwords in Swahili. In the text "Early Swahili History Reconsidered". However, Thomas Spear noted that Swahili retains
8084-549: The spread of a standardized indigenous variation of Arabic script for Swahili was hampered by the colonial takeover of East Africa by the United Kingdom and Germany . The usage of Arabic script was suppressed in German East Africa and to a lesser extent in British East Africa . Nevertheless, well into the 1930s and 1940s, rural literacy rate in Arabic script as well as a local preference to write Swahili in
8178-512: The treatment or prevention of diseases. The Maasai people also add herbs to different foods to avoid stomach upsets and give digestive aid. The use of plant-based medicine remains an important part of Maasai life. Maasai clothing symbolises ethnic group membership, a pastoralist lifestyle, as well as an individual's social position. From this they can decide the roles they undertake for the tribe. Jewellery also can show an individual's gender, relationship status, and age. Maasai traditional clothing
8272-401: The voiced consonants have devoiced, though they are still written mb, nd etc. The /r/ phoneme is realised as either a short trill [ r ] or more commonly as a single tap [ ɾ ] by most speakers. [x] exists in free variation with h, and is only distinguished by some speakers. In some Arabic loans (nouns, verbs, adjectives), emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing
8366-465: Was a function of personality rather than position. Many Maasai have also adopted Christianity or Islam . The Maasai produce intricate jewellery and sell these items to tourists. Educating Maasai women to use clinics and hospitals during pregnancy has enabled more infants to survive. The exception is found in extremely remote areas. A corpse rejected by scavengers is seen as having something wrong with it, and liable to cause social disgrace; therefore, it
8460-535: Was formalised in an institutional level when the Germans took over after the Berlin conference . After seeing there was already a widespread language, the Germans formalised it as the official language to be used in schools. Thus schools in Swahili are called Shule (from German Schule ) in government, trade and the court system. With the Germans controlling the major Swahili-speaking region in East Africa, they changed
8554-421: Was found in 12% of the Maasai samples. Haplogroup B-M60 was also observed in 8% of the studied Maasai, which is also found in 30% (16/53) of Southern Sudanese Nilotes. According to an mtDNA study by Castri et al. (2008), which tested Maasai individuals in Kenya, the maternal lineages found among the Maasai are quite diverse but similar in overall frequency to that observed in other Nilo-Hamitic populations from
8648-495: Was initially spread by Arab slave traders along the East African coast. The word `Swahili' comes from an Arabic name for the area, meaning "coasts": The core of the Swahili language originates in Bantu languages of the coast of East Africa. Much of Swahili's Bantu vocabulary has cognates in the Unguja , Pemba , and Mijikenda languages and, to a lesser extent, other East African Bantu languages . While opinions vary on
8742-586: Was mostly restricted to the coast). In June 1928, an inter-territorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya , Tanganyika , Uganda , and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa . The Zanzibar dialect was chosen as standard Swahili for those areas, and the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted. Estimates of the total number of first- and second-language Swahili speakers vary widely, from as low as 50 million to as high as 200 million, but generally range from 60 million to 150 million. Swahili has become
8836-514: Was used to strengthen solidarity within the nation, and remains to be a key identity of the Tanzanian people. Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes : /ɑ/ , /ɛ/ , /i/ , /ɔ/ , and /u/ . According to Ellen Contini-Morava , vowels are never reduced , regardless of stress . However, according to Edgar Polomé , these five phonemes can vary in pronunciation. Polomé claims that /ɛ/ , /i/ , /ɔ/ , and /u/ are pronounced as such only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, as well as before
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