The Degere are a Mijikenda-speaking group of former hunter-gatherers of Kenya and Tanzania, now settled along the Ramisi, Mwena and

Umba Umba may refer to *Umba, Russia, an urban-type settlement in Murmansk Oblast, Russia *Umba (White Sea), a river on the Kola Peninsula, Russia *Umba River (Tanzania), a river in Tanzania *Umba sapphire, a sapphire from Tanzania *Umba Valley, a valley ...

rivers, with a few along the coast. They may number no more than a few hundred to at most a few thousand. They are believed to be related to, possibly descended from, the Oromo-speaking

Waata The Waata (Waat, Watha), or Sanye, are an Oromo language, Oromo-speaking people of Kenya and former hunter-gatherers. They share the name ''Sanye'' with the neighboring Dahalo language, Dahalo. The current language of the Waata may be a dialect ...

. They are variously reported to speak Duruma, Digo, a similar Mijikenda dialect of their own, or to speak Mijikenda with grammatical errors (such as incorrect verb tenses) much as the Waata do when they speak Mijikenda. A former arrow-poison trader reported that when he visited the Degere at Mkoseka in northern Tanzania in 1959, among themselves they spoke their own language, which he said was similar to Waata. He was able, with difficulty, to recall some words and phrases, along with their Waata equivalents, and equated the language with both Waata and the language of the ' Dorobo' hunter-gatherers on the other side of the

Usambara Mountains The Usambara Mountains of northeastern Tanzania in tropical East Africa, comprise the easternmost ranges of the Eastern Arc Mountains. The ranges of approximately long and about half that wide, are situated in the Lushoto District of the Tan ...

.By this he might have been referring to Aasax/Aramanik. (Walsh 1990) Half of the words were clearly related to Waata, though with some differences in pronunciation and meaning, but the rest were obscure and could not be identified with a known language, though this was complicated by the difficulty of recall, and possibility that errors or distortions crept in over time. The more obscure of these words, remembered nearly 30 years later, include,Martin Walsh, 1990. The Degere: Forgotten hunter-gatherers of the East African Coast. ''Cambridge Anthropology'' 14: 68–81. :''sako'' 'girl' (i.e., before having children) :''sakaya'' 'woman' (with children) :''gobina'' 'blood' :''mada'' 'meat' :''mat̠indo'' 'milk' :''bulabula'' 'bee' Walsh (1990, 1992/1993) concludes it is possible that the former Degere language was a variety of Oromo that had been influenced by a still earlier language of theirs, or by the language of the hunter-gathering neighbors. The Waata say they had a language of their own before shifting to Oromo, so another possibility is that the Degere split from the Waata and traveled south, away from Oromo influence, before that shift was complete, and so retained part of that earlier language in their lexicon. The name 'Degere' is the root of the Mijikenda name, ''mudegere'' (sg) / ''adegere'' (pl), from the verb ''kudegere'' 'to roam', presumably reflecting their former hunter-gatherer economy. The establishment of the

Mkomazi Game Reserve Mkomazi National Park is located in northeastern Tanzania on the Kenyan border, in Kilimanjaro Region and Tanga Region. It was established as a game reserve in 1951 and upgraded to a national park in 2006. The park covers over , and is dominate ...

in Tanzania in 1951 may have accelerated their abandonment of hunting.Martin Walsh, 1992/1993. The Vuna and the Degere: Remnants and Outcasts among the Duruma and Digo of Kenya and Tanzania. ''Bulletin of the International Committee on Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research'' 34/35: 133–147.

References

Hunter-gatherers of Africa Unclassified languages of Africa {{AfroAsiatic-lang-stub