The Waata (Waat, Watha), or Sanye, are an
Oromo-speaking people of Kenya and former
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
s. They share the name ''Sanye'' with the neighboring
Dahalo.
The current language of the Waata may be a dialect of
Orma or otherwise
Southern Oromo
Southern Oromo, or Afaan Oromoo (after one of its dialects), is a variety of Oromo spoken in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya by the Borana people. Günther Schlee also notes that it is the native language of a number of related peoples, su ...
. However, there is evidence that they may have shifted from a
Southern Cushitic language
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 ...
, a group that includes Dahalo.
[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.]
See also
*
Degere
The Degere are a Mijikenda-speaking group of former hunter-gatherers of Kenya and Tanzania, now settled along the Ramisi, Mwena and Umba rivers, with a few along the coast. They may number no more than a few hundred to at most a few thousand. ...
External links
www.watha.org
References
Languages of Kenya
Hunter-gatherers of Africa
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