Masaba (''Lumasaaba''), sometimes known as Gisu (''Lugisu'') after one of its dialects, is a

Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

spoken by more than two million people in East Africa. The Gisu dialect in eastern Uganda is mutually intelligible with

Bukusu The Bukusu people ( Bukusu: ''Babukusu'') are one of the seventeen Kenyan tribes of the Luhya Bantu people of East Africa residing mainly in the counties of Bungoma and Trans Nzoia. They are closely related to other Luhya people and the Gisu ...

, spoken by ethnic

Luhya Luhya or Abaluyia may refer to: * Luhya people * Luhya language Luhya (; also Luyia, Luhia or Luhiya) is a Bantu language of western Kenya. Dialects The various Luhya tribes speak several related languages and dialects, though some of them are ...

in western Kenya. ''Masaba'' is the local name of Mount Elgon and the name of the son of the ancestor of the Gisu tribe. Like other Bantu languages, Lumasaba nouns are divided into several sets of

noun classes In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...

. These are similar to the

genders Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

in Germanic and

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...

, except that instead of the usual two or three, there are around eighteen different noun classes. The language has a quite complex

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

morphology.

Varieties

Varieties of Masaba are as follows:Maho (2009) *Gisu (''Lugisu'') *Kisu *

(''Lubukusu''; ethnic Luhya) *Syan *Tachoni (''Lutachoni''; ethnic Luhya) *Dadiri (''Ludadiri'') *Buya (''Lubuya'') Dadiri is spoken in the north, Gisu in the center, and Buya in the center and south of Masaba territory in Uganda. Bukusu is spoken in Kenya, separated from ethnic Masaba by Nilotic languages on the border.

Phonology

See

Bukusu dialect Bukusu is a dialect of the Masaba language spoken by the Bukusu tribe of the Luhya people of western Kenya. It is one of several ethnically Luhya dialects; however, it is more closely related to the Gisu dialect of Masaaba in eastern Uganda (and ...

for details of one variety of Masaba.

Consonants

Vowels

Masaba has a basic 5-vowel system consisting of /i, e, a, o, u/.

References

Bibliography

*Brown, Gillian (1972) ''Phonological Rules and Dialectal Variation: A study of the phonology of Lumasaaba''

External links

Kulomba Kwikumutikinyi
Portions of the

Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...

in Masaba (1907) digitized by Richard Mammana and Charles Wohlers *http://open-chapel.com/scripture/language-preservation/lumasaaba-language-study/ Learning Lumasaaba by Catherine Mabongor {{Authority control Languages of Uganda Great Lakes Bantu languages