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.
Phonology
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Explosives | /b/ | /t/ | /c/ | /k/ | /ʔ/ | |
| Implosives | /ɓ/ | /ɗ/ | /ʄ/ | /ɠ/ | ||
| Nasals | /m/ | /n/ | ||||
| Fricatives | /s/ | /h/ | ||||
| Laterals | /l/ | |||||
| Flaps | /ɾ/ | |||||
| Trills | /r/ | |||||
| Semivowels | Weak | /w/ | /j/ | |||
| Strong | /wː/ | /jː/ | ||||
References
- ^ Samburu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ “Samburu Dictionary » Phonology – Fonolojia”. Retrieved 2025-06-02.
Further reading
- Rainer Vossen. The Eastern Nilotes: Linguistic and Historical Reconstructions. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag 1982. ISBN 3-496-00698-6.
External links
- Maa Language Project
- Embuku E Sayiata Too Ltung’ana Pooki Maasai-Samburu Anglican Prayer Book (1967), digitized by Richard Mammana
