Samburu language

Samburu
Sampur, ɔl Maa
Native toKenya
RegionSamburu district of Rift Valley Province
EthnicitySamburu
Native speakers
240,000 (2009 census)[1]
(including Camus)
Dialects
  • Camus
Language codes
ISO 639-3saq
Glottologsamb1315

Samburu is a Maa language dialect spoken by Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya. The Samburu number about 128,000 (or 147,000 including the Camus/Chamus).[when?] The Samburu dialect is closely related to the Camus dialect (88% to 94% lexical similarity) and to the South Maasai dialects (77% to 89% lexical similarity). The word "Samburu" itself may derive from the Maa word saamburr for a leather bag the Samburu use.

References

  1. ^ Samburu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

Further reading

  • Rainer Vossen. The Eastern Nilotes: Linguistic and Historical Reconstructions. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag 1982. ISBN 3-496-00698-6.


This Nilo-Saharan languages–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.