Datooga (also Datog, Datoga, Taturu, Mang'ati, Tatoga or Tatog'')'' is a

Nilotic language The Nilotic languages are a group of related languages spoken across a wide area between South Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples. Etymology The word Nilotic means of or relating to the Nile River or to the Nile region of Africa. Dem ...

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

of the

Southern Nilotic The Southern Nilotic languages are spoken mainly in western Kenya and northern Tanzania (with one of them, Kupsabiny language, Kupsabiny or Sapiny, being spoken on the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon). They form a division of the larger Nilotic langu ...

group. It is spoken by the

Datooga people The Datooga, (''Wamang'ati'' in Swahili), are a pastoralist Nilotic people of based in Manyara Region, south west Arusha Region, and northern Singida Region of Tanzania. In 2000 the Datooga population was estimated to number 87,978. History ...

of the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately in total length, that runs from Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

. The Sukuma name ''Taturu'' is also sometimes used in English; the Swahili name ''Mang'ati'' comes from

Maasai Maasai may refer to: * Maasai people *Maasai language * Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) * Massai Massai (also known as: Masai, Massey, Massi, Mah–sii, Massa, Wasse, Wassil or by the nickname "Big Foot" Mas ...

, where it means "enemy". However, it is not considered offensive to the Datooga, as there is a degree of pride in being the historic enemy of the Maasai, and ''Mang'ati'' has become the standard name for the group in Swahili. In addition, numerous tribal and dialectal names may be found for the people or language as a whole. The Datooga have been claimed to be one of the least educated peoples in Tanzania, and there is almost no literacy in the language; literacy in Swahili has been reported to be very low in some communities. However, the Barabaiga and Gisamjanga dialects have been written, and some work is being done on Asimjeeg.

Varieties

Dialect diversity is great enough to make

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

difficult, and Blench (2000) lists East Datooga and West Datooga as distinct languages. Dialects are often assumed to correspond to the seven Datooga tribes, but the speech of the Gisamjanga (Kisamajeng, Gisamjang) and the Barabaig, for example, are very close, and can be considered a single dialect. The other dialects, with alternate spellings, are Bajuta, Barabayiiga (Barabaig, Barabayga, Barabaik, Barbaig), Asimjeeg (Tsimajeega, Isimijeega), Rootigaanga (Rotigenga, Rotigeenga), Buraadiiga (Buradiga, Bureadiga), Bianjiida (Biyanjiida, Utatu). A 1997 dialect survey includes data from four Datooga varieties:Ralph Schubert, Anette Schubert, Douglas Boone & Sheri Daggett, 1997. 'Datooga Dialect Survey', SIL. *Bianjida (the most divergent) *Gisamjanga (including Bajuta) *Barabaiga *Buradiga *Asimjeeg *Gidang'oodiga (a special blacksmith group) The suffixes ''-da'' (singular) and ''-ga'' (plural) on these names and many Datooga nouns are equivalent to English ''the'' .

Grammar

Datooga has been strongly influenced by

South Cushitic languages The South Cushitic or Rift languages of Tanzania are a branch of the Cushitic languages. The most numerous is Iraqw, with half a million speakers. These languages are believed to have been originally spoken by Southern Cushitic agro-pastoralists ...

previously spoken in the area where Datooga has taken over. In turn, Datooga has strongly influenced the

Iraqw language Iraqw (;) is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Arusha and Manyara Regions. It is expanding in numbers as the Iraqw people The Iraqw People (; are the Cushitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting the northern Tanzanian regions. They ...

which has occupied much former Datooga territory and has absorbed Datooga through intermarriage; for example, the Iraqw use Datooga vocabulary for poetic language. Some varieties of Datooga have a verb-initial

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

, but the relative order of subject and object reflects pragmatic concerns.

Grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...

in the Gisamjanga variety is marked by tone in a

marked nominative In linguistic typology, marked nominative alignment is an unusual type of morphosyntactic alignment similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a nominative–accusative alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a g ...

system. Numbers follow nouns, and question words come at the end of a clause. The

numeral system A numeral system (or system of numeration) is a writing system for expressing numbers; that is, a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using Numerical digit, digits or other symbols in a consistent manner. The same s ...

is vigesimal, but domestic animals are counted in pairs, so that the word used for 'five' when counting other objects means 'ten' when referring to goats or cattle.

Phonology

The consonants are as follows: A retroflex /ɭ/ may also be present in some dialects. /q/ may have different realizations, being heard as � χ ʁin various positions. Plosives are

devoiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

word-finally and when adjacent to another plosive or a fricative. ''Datooga'' is underlyingly (or equivalently ); the voiceless is longer than a voiced There is also no distinction between and a

zero onset In orthography, a zero consonant, silent initial, or null-onset letter is a consonant letter that does not correspond to a consonant sound, but is required when a word or syllable starts with a vowel (i.e. has a null onset). Some abjads, abugidas, ...

to a syllable. The vowels are as follows: Sounds /i ɛ a u/ may also be heard as � æ ɑ ʊin free variation. Final vowels are often

in Gisamjanga and Barabaig, as may be the consonants which proceed them, which is why ''Barabayiiga'' for example is commonly transcribed as ''Barabaik.''

References

* Rottland, Franz. 1982. ''Die Südnilotischen Sprachen: Beschreibung, Vergleichung und Rekonstruktion. (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, 7.)'' Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. 153-196. {{Eastern Sudanic languages Southern Nilotic languages Languages of Tanzania