The Elgon languages are languages of the
Southern Nilotic Kalenjin Kalenjin may refer to:
* Kalenjin people
The Kalenjin are a group of tribes designated as Highland Nilotes and are descended from Maliri people ''(thus related to Daasanach of Ethiopia.)'' The Kalenjin are cousins with Datooga people of Tan ...
family spoken in the
Mount Elgon area in western
Kenya
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and eastern
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
. According to the
Ethnologue, there are two main Elgon languages:
Kupsabiny (spoken by about 120,000 people) and
Sabaot (spoken by about 134,000 people). Sabaot is a common name assumed by various related peoples, including the Kony, Pok, and Bong'om (after whom the
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
ern
Kenya
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n town of
Bungoma
Bungoma is the county town of Bungoma County in Kenya. It was established as a trading centre in the early 20th century.
Naming
Bungoma, was named from eng'oma—the Bukusu word for drums. The town was originally a meeting place for Bukusu ...
is named), whose respective languages are considered separate languages by Rottland (1982).
The
Terik people, living east of Lake Victoria wedged in between the
Nandi,
Luo Luo may refer to:
Luo peoples and languages
*Luo peoples, an ethno-linguistic group of eastern and central Africa
**Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania or Joluo, an ethnic group in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania.
*** Luoland, th ...
and
Luyia, spoke or speak a dialect closely related to Pok and Bong'om.
According to their own oral history they are "people of Mount Elgon"; this is confirmed by Bong'om traditions that "the people who later called themselves Terik were still Bong'om when they left Elgon and moved away in a southern direction" (Roeder 1986:142). Recently many of them have assimilated to neighbouring Nandi, leading to a decline in the use of the
Terik language
Terik (Nyang’ori) is a Kalenjin language of Kenya.
The language of the Terik is closely related to the Elgon languages Pok and especially Bong'om. Part of the vocabulary is related exclusively to the Elgon languages, for example words like '' ...
in favor of Nandi. Although they live in two countries, both groups speak the same language but with slightly different pronunciations.
References
Kalenjin languages
Languages of Kenya
Languages of Uganda
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